Swift object storage

Swift is the object storage service in the OpenStack ecosystem exposing a HTTP based API knows as Swift API. Binero cloud provides it’s own object storage service that supports this HTTP based Swift API.

The Swift API is fully supported within the platform and you are able to run it from any of our Storage regions and availability zones, either from one availability zone at a time or both using replication.

A container holding objects is called a container in Swift terminology.

Tip

The Swift implementation does not have as broad support as the S3 API among applications and libraries. If you don’t need the Swift API specifically we recommend going with the S3 API.

Note

See known limitations for more information on compatibility and interoperability between the S3 and Swift APIs.

Setting up credentials

You are able to use the Swift API using any API-user and setting up application specific credentials is therefore done in the same manner. See our Users article for more information.

Swift client

While you can use the Cloud management portal or OpenStack Horizon to create and manage buckets (see Getting started with object storage), if you want to manage swift storage in another availability zone than europe-se-1a (which is the only one these tools can access), you will need the swift client.

If you read our guide OpenStack Terminal Client, chances are that you’ve already installed the client, this can be tested by running swift --version. If not, its available via your python package manager (or your OS package manager) and is usually called python-swiftclient, so in Ubuntu you might install it as such apt install python-swiftclient.

To use the client, provided you are also using the OpenStack terminal client, you should be able to re-use the same environmental variables as it does. That means if you are able to run for instance openstack server list in a terminal, you should also be able to run swift list (which will show your buckets in availability zone europe-se-1a) in the same terminal. Please see the OpenStack Terminal Client article for more information.

Client endpoints

When you want to use the client with one of the non-default endpoints - that is when you want to use replicated storage or when you want to use another availability zone, you would use the --os-storage-url flag with the new endpoint:

  • Run this command: openstack project list, save the ID of the project.

  • Run this command: swift --os-storage-url https://object-eu-se-1b.binero.cloud/swift/v1/AUTH_[PROJECT_ID] list, replacing the [PROJECT_ID] with the ID from previous step and using the URL from the Object storage endpoints article to reach the storage you are interested in.

Note

Without the --os-storage-url all requests will go to the non-replicated storage in availability zone europe-se-1a.

Creating a bucket

To create a bucket via Swift, you would either use the API (not covered in this documentation) or the swift client. To use the latter to create a bucket, follow these steps. Add the --os-storage-url as per above if you need to change API endpoint.

  • Decide which storage policy you want to use. Save the name.

  • Decide whether or not to use replication.

  • Decide in what availability zone to store your data, save the name.

  • Based on replication (or not) as well as availability zone, choose the right endpoint. Save the endpoint URL.

  • Create your container using swift post -H "X-Storage-Policy:[STORAGE_POLICY_NAME]" [CONTAINER_NAME], add the correct information in the command, you can skip specifying a storage policy in which case it will use the default.

  • Verify by running the following command swift stat [CONTAINER_NAME]

Note

Please read the section above about client endpoints and add the --os-storage-url flag should you need to use something other than non-replicated storage in availability zone europe-se-1a.

Deleting a bucket

To delete a bucket using the swift client, follow these steps:

  • Run this command: swift list, save the name of the bucket you want to delete.

  • Run this command: swift delete [BUCKET_NAME], replace [BUCKET_NAME] with the name of the bucket.

Important

You will not be asked to verify a deletion and everything in the bucket will get deleted.