| layout | title | categories | lang | author |
|---|---|---|---|---|
post |
How to use S3QL with RunAbove? |
Object-Storage |
en |
pbtrung |
S3QL is a file system that can be mounted locally and stores its data using cloud storage providers like Google Storage, Amazon S3, or OpenStack Swift. Some nice features are transparent compression, encryption, data de-duplication, and snapshotting, which makes it particularly appropriate for backup purposes. More information on the file system can be found on its author's website.
Since OpenStack Swift is one of available backends of S3QL, we can use S3QL to save your data on RunAbove object storage.
The recommended version is 2.x or newer.
For Debian-based distributions, S3QL can be installed from official repositories with
sudo aptitude install s3ql
The lastest version is usually in jessie (testing) or sid (unstable) branch of Debian repositories.
For Ubuntu-based distributions, because the versions in Ubuntu repositories are outdated, it is recommended to install from the S3QL PPA as follows
Install dependencies and add the S3QL repository
sudo aptitude install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nikratio/s3ql
Refresh package database and install S3QL
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install s3ql
Guides to install precompiled packages for other Linux distributions are available on S3QL wiki.
The required credentials are your login (email), password and tenant name, which can be accessed in OpenStack Horizon under Current Project.
S3QL assumes you already have a working container. You can follow tutorials on RunAbove Knowledge Base to create new container, e.g. this one.
Initialize the file system and associate it with your chosen container using keystone (v2) authentication
mkfs.s3ql swiftks://auth.runabove.io/<region name>:<container name>
The region name must be BHS-1 or SBG-1, e.g.
mkfs.s3ql swiftks://auth.runabove.io/BHS-1:myContainer
The above command will ask for your backend login, backend password and file system encryption passphrase. The backend login should be <tenant>:<account email>, e.g. 12345678:me@example.com. The backend password is your RunAbove account password and the encryption passphrase is to encrypt your data, which is therefore extremely important. You should choose a long, complex passphrase and keep it secret.
Mount the S3QL file system to a directory
mount.s3ql swiftks://auth.runabove.io/BHS-1:myContainer /path/to/mount/point
Now the mounted directory will behave like a normal directory on your hard drive, e.g. copy, rename, move files. Do whatever you want with it.
After finishing your stuffs, you have to unmount the file system to make sure everything will be committed to your RunAbove container.
umount.s3ql /path/to/mount/point
mount.s3ql needs your credentials on every time it is called. An authentication file can ease the process. Create a text file mycred
[myContainer]
storage-url: swiftks://auth.runabove.io/BHS-1:myContainer
backend-login: <tenant>:<account email>
backend-password: <your RunAbove account password>
fs-passphrase: <file system encryption passphrase>
It is your responsibility to protect the mycred file. Remember to change its permission so that mount.s3ql does not complain
chmod 600 mycred
Now you can use mount.s3ql without entering your credentials
mount.s3ql --authfile /path/to/mycred swiftks://auth.runabove.io/BHS-1:myContainer /path/to/mount/point