The swift tool is a command line utility for communicating with an OpenStack Object Storage (swift) environment. It allows one to perform several types of operations.
This section covers the options for authenticating with a swift object store. The combinations of options required for each authentication version are detailed below, but are just a subset of those that can be used to successfully authenticate. These are the most common and recommended combinations.
You should obtain the details of your authentication version and credentials from your storage provider. These details should make it clearer which of the authentication sections below are most likely to allow you to connect to your storage account.
swift --os-auth-url https://api.example.com:5000/v3 --auth-version 3 \
--os-project-name project1 --os-project-domain-name domain1 \
--os-username user --os-user-domain-name domain1 \
--os-password password list
swift --os-auth-url https://api.example.com:5000/v3 --auth-version 3 \
--os-project-id 0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef \
--os-user-id abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789 \
--os-password password list
Manually specifying the options above on the command line can be avoided by setting the following combinations of environment variables:
ST_AUTH_VERSION=3
OS_USERNAME=user
OS_USER_DOMAIN_NAME=domain1
OS_PASSWORD=password
OS_PROJECT_NAME=project1
OS_PROJECT_DOMAIN_NAME=domain1
OS_AUTH_URL=https://api.example.com:5000/v3
ST_AUTH_VERSION=3
OS_USER_ID=abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789
OS_PASSWORD=password
OS_PROJECT_ID=0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef
OS_AUTH_URL=https://api.example.com:5000/v3
swift --os-auth-url https://api.example.com:5000/v2.0 \
--os-tenant-name tenant \
--os-username user --os-password password list
Manually specifying the options above on the command line can be avoided by setting the following environment variables:
ST_AUTH_VERSION=2.0
OS_USERNAME=user
OS_PASSWORD=password
OS_TENANT_NAME=tenant
OS_AUTH_URL=https://api.example.com:5000/v2.0
You can configure swift to work with any number of other authentication systems that we will not cover in this document. If your storage provider is not using Keystone to provide access tokens, please contact them for instructions on the required options. It is likely that the options will need to be specified as below:
swift -A https://auth.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0 -U user -K api_key list
Specifying the options above manually on the command line can be avoided by setting the following environment variables:
ST_AUTH_VERSION=1.0
ST_AUTH=https://auth.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0
ST_USER=user
ST_KEY=key
It is also possible that you need to use a completely separate auth system, in which case swiftclient cannot request a token for you. In this case you should make the authentication request separately and access your storage using the token and storage URL options shown below:
swift --os-auth-token 6ee5eb33efad4e45ab46806eac010566 \
--os-storage-url https://10.1.5.2:8080/v1/AUTH_ced809b6a4baea7aeab61a \
list
Note
Leftover environment variables are a common source of confusion when authorization fails.
stat [container [object]]
Displays information for the account, container, or object depending on the arguments given (if any). In verbose mode, the storage URL and the authentication token are displayed as well.
list [command-options] [container]
Lists the containers for the account or the objects for a container. The -p <prefix> or --prefix <prefix> is an option that will only list items beginning with that prefix. The -d <delimiter> or --delimiter <delimiter> is an option (for container listings only) that will roll up items with the given delimiter (see OpenStack Swift general documentation <http://docs.openstack.org/developer/swift/> for what this means).
The -l and --lh options provide more detail, similar to ls -l and ls -lh, the latter providing sizes in human readable format (For example: 3K, 12M, etc). The latter two switches use more overhead to retrieve the displayed details, which is directly proportional to the number of container or objects listed.
upload [command-options] container file_or_directory [file_or_directory] [...]
Uploads the files and directories specified by the remaining arguments to the given container. The -c or --changed is an option that will only upload files that have changed since the last upload. The --object-name <object-name> is an option that will upload a file and name object to <object-name> or upload a directory and use <object-name> as object prefix. The -S <size> or --segment-size <size> and --leave-segments are options as well (see --help for more).
post [command-options] [container] [object]
Updates meta information for the account, container, or object depending on the arguments given. If the container is not found, the swiftclient will create it automatically, but this is not true for accounts and objects. Containers also allow the -r <read-acl> (or --read-acl <read-acl>) and -w <write-acl> (or --write-acl <write-acl>) options. The -m or --meta option is allowed on accounts, containers and objects, and is used to define the user metadata items to set in the form Name:Value. You can repeat this option. For example: post -m Color:Blue -m Size:Large
For more information about ACL formats see the documentation: ACLs.
download [command-options] [container] [object] [object] [...]
Downloads everything in the account (with --all), or everything in a container, or a list of objects depending on the arguments given. For a single object download, you may use the -o <filename> or --output <filename> option to redirect the output to a specific file or - to redirect to stdout. The --ignore-checksum is an option that turn off checksum validation. You can specify optional headers with the repeatable cURL-like option -H [--header <name:value>].
delete [command-options] [container] [object] [object] [...]
Deletes everything in the account (with --all), or everything in a container, or a list of objects depending on the arguments given. Segments of manifest objects will be deleted as well, unless you specify the --leave-segments option.
copy [command-options] container object
Copies an object to a new destination or adds user metadata to an object. Depending on the options supplied, you can preserve existing metadata in contrast to the post command. The --destination option sets the copy target destination in the form /container/object. If not set, the object will be copied onto itself which is useful for adding metadata. You can use the -M or --fresh-metadata option to copy an object without existing user meta data, and the -m or --meta option to define user meta data items to set in the form Name:Value. You can repeat this option. For example: copy -m Color:Blue -m Size:Large.
capabilities [proxy-url]
Displays cluster capabilities. The output includes the list of the activated Swift middlewares as well as relevant options for each ones. Additionally the command displays relevant options for the Swift core. If the proxy-url option is not provided, the storage URL retrieved after authentication is used as proxy-url.
tempurl [method] [seconds] [path] [key]
Generates a temporary URL for a Swift object. method option sets an HTTP method to allow for this temporary URL that is usually ‘GET’ or ‘PUT’. seconds option sets the amount of time in seconds the temporary URL will be valid for; or, if --absolute is passed, the Unix timestamp when the temporary URL will expire. path option sets the full path to the Swift object. Example: /v1/AUTH_account/c/o. key option is the secret temporary URL key set on the Swift cluster. To set a key, run swift post -m "Temp-URL-Key: <your secret key>".
auth
Display authentication variables in shell friendly format. Command to run to export storage url and auth token into OS_STORAGE_URL and OS_AUTH_TOKEN: swift auth. Command to append to a runcom file (e.g. ~/.bashrc, /etc/profile) for automatic authentication: swift auth -v -U test:tester -K testing.
In this section we present some example usage of the swift CLI. To keep the examples as short as possible, these examples assume that the relevant authentication options have been set using environment variables. You can obtain the full list of commands and options available in the swift CLI by executing the following:
> swift --help
> swift <command> --help
List the existing swift containers:
> swift list
container_1
Create a new container:
> swift post TestContainer
Upload an object into a container:
> swift upload TestContainer testSwift.txt
testSwift.txt
List the contents of a container:
> swift list TestContainer
testSwift.txt
Display auth related authentication variables in shell friendly format:
> swift auth
export OS_STORAGE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8080/v1/AUTH_bf5e63572f7a420a83fcf0aa8c72c2c7
export OS_AUTH_TOKEN=c597015ae19943a18438b52ef3762e79
Download an object from a container:
> swift download TestContainer testSwift.txt
testSwift.txt [auth 0.028s, headers 0.045s, total 0.045s, 0.002 MB/s]
Note
To upload an object to a container, your current working directory must be where the file is located or you must provide the complete path to the file. In the case that you provide the complete path of the file, that complete path will be the name of the uploaded object.
For example:
> swift upload TestContainer /home/swift/testSwift/testSwift.txt
home/swift/testSwift/testSwift.txt
> swift list TestContainer
home/swift/testSwift/testSwift.txt
Swift has a single object size limit of 5GiB. In order to upload files larger than this, we must create a large object that consists of smaller segments. The example below shows how to upload a large video file as a static large object in 1GiB segments:
> swift upload videos --use-slo --segment-size 1G myvideo.mp4
myvideo.mp4 segment 8
myvideo.mp4 segment 4
myvideo.mp4 segment 2
myvideo.mp4 segment 7
myvideo.mp4 segment 0
myvideo.mp4 segment 1
myvideo.mp4 segment 3
myvideo.mp4 segment 6
myvideo.mp4 segment 5
myvideo.mp4
This command will upload segments to a container named videos_segments, and create a manifest file describing the entire object in the videos container. For more information on large objects, see the documentation here.
> swift list videos
myvideo.mp4
> swift list videos_segments
myvideo.mp4/slo/1460229233.679546/9341553868/1073741824/00000000
myvideo.mp4/slo/1460229233.679546/9341553868/1073741824/00000001
myvideo.mp4/slo/1460229233.679546/9341553868/1073741824/00000002
myvideo.mp4/slo/1460229233.679546/9341553868/1073741824/00000003
myvideo.mp4/slo/1460229233.679546/9341553868/1073741824/00000004
myvideo.mp4/slo/1460229233.679546/9341553868/1073741824/00000005
myvideo.mp4/slo/1460229233.679546/9341553868/1073741824/00000006
myvideo.mp4/slo/1460229233.679546/9341553868/1073741824/00000007
myvideo.mp4/slo/1460229233.679546/9341553868/1073741824/00000008
Firstly, the key should be set, then generate a temporary URL for a Swift object:
> swift post -m "Temp-URL-Key:b3968d0207b54ece87cccc06515a89d4"
> swift tempurl GET 6000 /v1/AUTH_bf5e63572f7a420a83fcf0aa8c72c2c7\
/firstcontainer/clean.sh b3968d0207b54ece87cccc06515a89d4
/v1/AUTH_/firstcontainer/clean.sh?temp_url_sig=\
9218fc288cc09e5edd857b6a3d43cf2122b906dc&temp_url_expires=1472203614