Enable Multi-Site Server-Side Bucket Replication
The procedure on this page configures automatic server-side bucket replication between multiple MinIO deployments. Multi-Site Active-Active replication builds on the Enable Two-Way Server-Side Bucket Replication procedure with additional considerations required to ensure predictable replication behavior across all sites.
To configure replication between arbitrary S3-compatible services, use
mc mirror
.To configure one-way “active-active” replication between two MinIO deployments, see Enable Two-Way Server-Side Bucket Replication.
To configure one-way “active-passive” replication between MinIO deployments, see Enable One-Way Server-Side Bucket Replication.
Multi-Site Active-Active replication configurations can span multiple racks, datacenters, or geographic locations. Complexity of configuring and maintaining multi-site configurations generally increase with the number of sites and size of each site. Enterprises looking to implement multi-site replication should consider leveraging MinIO SUBNET support to access the expertise, planning, and engineering resources required for addressing that use case.
See also
Use the
mc replicate update
command to modify an existing replication rule.Use the
mc replicate update
command with the--state "disable"
flag to disable an existing replication rule.Use the
mc replicate rm
command to remove an existing replication rule.
Requirements
You must meet all of the basic requirements for bucket replication described in Bucket Replication Requirements.
In addition, to create multi-site bucket replication set up, you must meet the following additional requirements:
Access to All Clusters
You must have network access and log in credentials with correct permissions to all deployments to set up multi-site active-active bucket replication.
You can access the deployments by installing mc
and using the command line.
Use the mc alias set
command to create an alias for each MinIO deployment.
Alias creation requires specifying an access key for a user on the deployment. This user must have permission to create and manage users and policies on the deployment.
Specifically, ensure the user has at minimum:
Considerations
Click to expand any of the following:
Use Consistent Replication Settings
MinIO supports customizing the replication configuration to enable or disable the following replication behaviors:
Replication of delete operations
Replication of delete markers
Replication of existing objects
Replication of metadata-only changes
When configuring replication rules for a bucket, ensure that all MinIO deployments participating in multi-site replication use the same replication behaviors to ensure consistent and predictable synchronization of objects.
Replication of Existing Objects
MinIO supports automatically replicating existing objects in a bucket.
MinIO requires explicitly enabling replication of existing objects using the mc replicate add --replicate
or mc replicate update --replicate
and including the existing-objects
replication feature flag.
This procedure includes the required flags for enabling replication of existing objects.
Replication of Delete Operations
MinIO supports replicating delete operations onto the target bucket. Specifically, MinIO can replicate versioning Delete Markers and the deletion of specific versioned objects:
For delete operations on an object, MinIO replication also creates the delete marker on the target bucket.
For delete operations on versions of an object, MinIO replication also deletes those versions on the target bucket.
MinIO requires explicitly enabling replication of delete operations using the mc replicate add --replicate
or mc replicate update --replicate
.
This procedure includes the required flags for enabling replication of delete operations and delete markers.
MinIO does not replicate delete operations resulting from the application of lifecycle management expiration rules. Configure matching expiration rules for the bucket on all replication sites to ensure consistent application of object expiration.
Procedure
This procedure requires repeating steps for each MinIO deployment participating in the multi-site replication configuration. Depending on the number of deployments, this procedure may require significant time and care in implementation. MinIO recommends reading through the procedure before attempting to implement the documented steps.
Configure Multi-Site Bucket Replication Using the Command Line mc
This procedure uses the placeholder ALIAS
to reference the alias each MinIO deployment being configured for replication.
Replace these values with the appropriate alias for each MinIO deployment.
This procedure assumes each alias corresponds to a user with the necessary replication permissions.
Changed in version RELEASE.2022-12-24T15-21-38Z: mc replicate add
automatically creates the necessary replication targets, removing the need for using the deprecated mc admin remote bucket add
command.
This procedure only documents the procedure as of that release.
1) Create New Bucket Replication Rules
Use the mc replicate add
command to add a new replication rule to each MinIO deployment.
mc replicate add ALIAS/BUCKET \
--remote-bucket 'https://USER:PASSWORD@HOSTNAME:PORT/BUCKET' \
--replicate "delete,delete-marker,existing-objects"
Replace
ALIAS
with the alias of the origin MinIO deployment. The name must match the bucket specified when creating the remote target in the previous step.Replace
BUCKET
with the name of the bucket to replicate from on the origin deployment.Replace the
--remote-bucket
to specify the remote MinIO deployment and bucket to which theALIAS/BUCKET
replicates.The
USER:PASSWORD
must correspond to a user on the remote deployment with the necessary replication permissions.The
HOSTNAME:PORT
must resolve to a reachable MinIO instance on the remote deployment. TheBUCKET
must exist and otherwise meet all other replication requirements.The
--replicate "delete,delete-marker,existing-objects"
flag enables the following replication features:See
mc replicate add --replicate
for more complete documentation. Omit any field to disable replication of that component.
Specify any other supported optional arguments for mc replicate add
.
Repeat these commands for each remote MinIO deployment participating in the multi-site replication configuration.
For example, a multi-site replication configuration consisting of MinIO deployments minio1
, minio2
, and minio3
would require repeating this step on each deployment for each remote.
Specifically, in this scenario, perform this step twice on each deployment:
On the
minio1
deployment, once for a rule forminio2
and again for a separate rule forminio3
.On the
minio2
deployment, once for a rule forminio1
and again for a separate rule forminio3
.On the
minio3
deployment, once for a rule forminio1
and again for a separate rule forminio2
.
2) Validate the Replication Configuration
Use mc cp
to copy a new object to the replicated bucket on one of the deployments.
mc cp ~/foo.txt ALIAS/BUCKET
Use mc ls
to verify the object exists on the destination bucket:
mc ls ALIAS/BUCKET
Repeat this test on each deployment by copying a new unique file and checking that the file replicates to each of the other deployments.
You can also use mc stat
to check the file to check the current replication stage of the object.