Volumes

In this lesson we explain how Telepresence handles volumes when you create an intercept, so a locally running process can access the same files a containerized process uses in the cluster. For more details, see the Telepresence documentation: https://www.telepresence.io/.

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When you intercept a service that uses a mounted volume, the process you run locally must be able to read from and/or write to that same volume data. Telepresence provides a way to expose the remote volume on your workstation using the --mount option so your local process sees the same filesystem contents as the container. How it works

Telepresence mounts the remote volume into a local mount point on your machine.
By default Telepresence chooses a temporary directory (for example /tmp/telfs-<random-number>).
You can request a specific local path by supplying --mount=<local-path>.
Mounts are visible in telepresence list for each active intercept.

CLI examples

Mount the remote volume to a specific local directory (e.g., /tmp/):

telepresence intercept products-depl --port 8000:3000 --mount=/tmp/

If you omit a path, you can enable mounting with a boolean-style flag (behavior depends on your Telepresence version). Telepresence then creates a temporary mountpoint for you, typically something like /tmp/telfs-1147625726.

Inspecting an intercept Run telepresence list to see details about active intercepts. The output includes a Volume Mount Point field showing the local mount location:

telepresence list

auth-depl       : ready to intercept (traffic-agent already installed)
inventory-depl  : ready to intercept (traffic-agent not yet installed)
products-depl   : intercepted
    Intercept name            : products-depl
    State                     : ACTIVE
    Workload kind             : Deployment
    Destination               : 127.0.0.1:8000
    Service Port Identifier   : 3000/TCP
    Volume Mount Point        : /tmp/telfs-1147625726
    Intercepting              : all TCP connections

The Volume Mount Point is the path on your local filesystem that mirrors the remote volume. Accessing files there lets your locally running process read and write the same data used by the intercepted container. Quick reference

Option / Command	Purpose	Example
`--mount=/path/`	Mount remote volume to a specific local path	`telepresence intercept products-depl --mount=/tmp/`
`--mount` (boolean)	Enable mounting and let Telepresence choose a temporary local path	`telepresence intercept products-depl --mount`
`telepresence list`	Show active intercepts and local mount points	`telepresence list`

Mounting remote volumes exposes those files on your machine. Be careful with sensitive data, and avoid simultaneous conflicting writes from both the cluster process and your local process to prevent data corruption or integrity issues.

Links and references

Telepresence official site: https://www.telepresence.io/
Telepresence CLI reference: https://www.telepresence.io/docs/latest/ (see intercept and mount options)
Kubernetes volumes overview: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/storage/volumes/

Course Introduction

Telepresence For Kubernetes

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