<p>We are trying to use kubernetes persistent volume mapped with pod/container directory to have as backup. Container directory (/home) already have data from dockerimage but when we mount kubernetes persistent volume with container directory(/home) the container data get override or vanishes.</p>
<p><em><strong>How to make kubernetes  persistent volume not to override data of container and only amend any data with pre-existing data?</strong></em></p>
<p><strong>cat pv.yml</strong></p>
<pre><code> apiVersion: v1
    kind: PersistentVolume
    metadata:
      name: task-pv-volume
      labels:
        type: local
    spec:
      storageClassName: manual
      capacity:
        storage: 10Gi
      accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
      hostPath:
        path: &quot;/home/xyz/dock/main/kube/storage&quot;
</code></pre>
<p><strong>cat pvclaim.yml</strong></p>
<pre><code>apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: task-pv-claim
spec:
  storageClassName: manual
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 3Gi
</code></pre>
<p><strong>Below is main manifest file which deploys pods with persistent volume</strong></p>
<pre><code>apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: mypod
spec:
  volumes:
    - name: task-pv-storage
      persistentVolumeClaim:
        claimName: task-pv-claim
    - name: cgroup
      hostPath:
        path: /sys/fs/cgroup
        type: Directory
  containers:
    - name: rbf-container
      image: 10.190.205.11:5000/myimage/ubuntu:1.0
      securityContext:
        privileged: true
      volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: &quot;/home/xyz&quot;      ##-&gt; mounting persistent volume with container directory /home/xyz**
          name: task-pv-storage
        - mountPath: /sys/fs/cgroup
          name: cgroup
</code></pre>
<p><strong>output with kubernetes persistent volume:</strong></p>
<pre><code>$ ssh 10.244.4.29
Failed to add the host to the list of known hosts (/home/xyz/.ssh/known_hosts).
xyz@10.244.4.29's password:
Last login: Tue Aug 25 11:16:48 2020 from 10.252.85.167
$ bash
To run a command as administrator (user &quot;root&quot;), use &quot;sudo &lt;command&gt;&quot;.
See &quot;man sudo_root&quot; for details.

xyz@mypod:~$ ls
xyz@mypod:~$ ls -l
total 0                    ##--&gt; no data present it all get vanished
xyz@mypod:~$ pwd
/home/xyz
</code></pre>
<p><strong>Output from pod without persistent volume</strong></p>
<pre><code>$ ssh 10.244.4.29
Failed to add the host to the list of known hosts (/home/xyz/.ssh/known_hosts).
xyz@10.244.4.29's password:
Last login: Tue Aug 25 11:16:48 2020 from 10.252.85.167
$ bash
To run a command as administrator (user &quot;root&quot;), use &quot;sudo &lt;command&gt;&quot;.
See &quot;man sudo_root&quot; for details.

xyz@mypod:~$ ls
xyz@mypod:~$ ls -l
total 465780
drwxrwxrwx 1 xyz xyz      4096 Aug 13 12:44 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x 2 xyz xyz      4096 Aug 25 11:12 Documents
drwxr-xr-x 2 xyz xyz      4096 Aug 25 11:12 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 2 xyz xyz      4096 Aug 25 11:12 Music
drwxr-xr-x 2 xyz xyz      4096 Aug 25 11:12 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 2 xyz xyz      4096 Aug 25 11:12 Public
drwxr-xr-x 2 xyz xyz      4096 Aug 25 11:12 Templates
drwxr-xr-x 2 xyz xyz      4096 Aug 25 11:12 Videos
-rw------- 1 xyz xyz   2404352 Aug 25 11:12 core
drwx------ 4 root root      4096 Aug 10 08:39 local.bak
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 474439680 Aug 10 08:35 local.tar
</code></pre>
<p><strong>As you can see data from dockerimage is available without using persistent volume</strong></p>

<p>I'm only at the beginning of my Kubernetes journey and still trying to grasp the best practices, but I think what you're trying to do is not possible (in the case of /home to /home). AFAIK the data is not overwritten, but exists &quot;under&quot; the mount. You can try this yourself by mounting a folder with <code>mount --bind folder_a folder_b</code> and then unmounting the folder with <code>umount folder_b</code>. Creating the mount hides the files in folder_b, but unmounting makes them appear again.</p>
<p>So that would mean that you just need to initialize the volume by copying the files to the volume. You can achieve this with <code>kubectl exec &lt;pod&gt; -- &lt;command&gt;</code>, or by running a <a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/job/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">job</a>, or with <a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/init-containers/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">initContainers</a>, or by using an entrypoint shell script. Since copying files over and over again to the mounted volume is waste of energy, I'd think that first two options are preferred.</p>
