Object Storage with MinIO

MinIO is a high-performance distributed object storage server, designed for large-scale private cloud infrastructure. MinIO is designed to be cloud-native so that it can scale sustainably in multi-tenant environments.

Before you start, deploy a server using the Ubuntu 22.04 c3 small option, in the region of your choice. If you haven't deployed a server before, see the tutorial Deploy Your First Server.

Installing and configuring MinIO

You can install the MinIO server by compiling the source code or via a binary file. For this guide, we'll use the binary and deploy on a server running Ubuntu 22.04.

First, if you haven't updated the package database recently, update it now:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Next, download the MinIO server binary:

curl -O https://dl.minio.io/server/minio/release/linux-amd64/minio

Change the permissions for the file you just downloaded to make it executable:

chmod +x minio

Next, move the binary to the /usr/local/bin directory, because that's where the startup script expects to find it. We'll get to the startup script in a bit.

mv minio /usr/local/bin

It's bad practice to run the MinIO server as root. Instead, we'll create a user called minio-user. Use this command:

useradd -r minio-user -s /sbin/nologin

Change the ownership of the minio binary to this new user:

chown minio-user:minio-user /usr/local/bin/minio

Depending on your particular setup, exactly how you create the storage directory may vary. For this tutorial, create a local directory called minio.

mkdir /etc/minio

Adjust the permissions for the storage directory you just created to allow minio-user access.

chown minio-user:minio-user /etc/minio

Next, you'll create a MinIO configuration file. Use Nano or your preferred text editor to create this file in the /etc/default directory:

nano /etc/default/minio

Make sure this file has the same permissions as the storage directory for minio-user.

Add the following code to the file, replacing <server_ip_address> with the IP address of your server:

MINIO_VOLUMES="/etc/minio/"
MINIO_OPTS="-C /etc/minio --address <server_ip_address>:9000"

You've set two variables in this file:

• MINIO_VOLUMES: the directory (path) where your files will are stored

• MINIO_OPTS: has a varity of uses, including the working path of the MinIO configuration, and options for how to access the MinIO UI

MinIO Startup Script

To allow MinIO to startup at reboot, you need a startup script. Download the descriptor file:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/minio/minio-service/master/linux-systemd/minio.service

The minio.service file will be created in your local directory.

Move the descriptor file to /etc/systemd/system:

mv minio.service /etc/systemd/system

To ensure systemd knows about the new startup script, you'll need to reload the systemd units:

systemctl daemon-reload

Also, to ensure that the MinIO Server automatically starts at reboot, add it to systemctl:

systemctl enable minio

This completes the installation and setup process for MinIO.

Next, start the service:

systemctl start minio

Check that it's running with the status command:

systemctl status minio

You should see an output similar to:

 minio.service - MinIO
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/minio.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2020-04-09 15:31:45 UTC; 1 day 3h ago
     Docs: https://docs.min.io
 Main PID: 2757 (minio)
    Tasks: 20 (limit: 4915)
   CGroup: /system.slice/minio.service
           └─2757 /usr/local/bin/minio server -C /etc/minio --address s3.example.com:443 /usr/local/minio/data

Finally, you'll verify that everything has installed correctly by viewing the MinIO dashboard. Open a browser and go to the address of your server, port 9000:

http://<server-ip-address>:9000

Your browser will redirect to port 44583, and you'll see the MinIO Object Store login page.

Log in to MinIO using the username minioadmin and the password minioadmin.

You'll see the MinIO Object Store console.

Conclusion

You've now created your own MinIO object storage server. From here, you may want to configure the server with a TLS certificate for security. You should also check out the MinIO web interface, so that you can create some buckets and start uploding objects.

For more information about MinIO, check out at the project’s documentation website. It's recommended to securing your MinIO Server using Let's Encrypt. Information on how to configure your MinIO access and credentials can be found in the User Management documentation page.