Object Store Management using the Swift client

Goal

Use the command-line utility swift to perform operations on your object store.

Swift client documentation

swift --help

Useful commands

command	description
list	Lists the containers for the account or the objects for a container.
capabilities	Retrieve capability of the proxy.
post	Updates meta information on the account, container, or object. If the container is not found, it will be created automatically.
stat	Displays information for the account, container, or object.
upload	Uploads specified files and directories to the given container.
download	Download objects from containers.
tempurl	Generates a temporary URL for a Swift object.
delete	Delete a container or objects within a container.

For a more detailed explanation of any specific command, add --help after it:

swift list --help

Example

$ swift list --help

Usage: swift list [--long] [--lh] [--totals] [--prefix <prefix>]
                  [--delimiter <delimiter>] [--header <header:value>]
                  [--versions] [<container>]

Lists the containers for the account or the objects for a container.

Positional arguments:
  [<container>]           Name of container to list object in.

Optional arguments:
  -l, --long            Long listing format, similar to ls -l.
  --lh                  Report sizes in human readable format similar to
                        ls -lh.
  -t, --totals          Used with -l or --lh, only report totals.
  -p <prefix>, --prefix <prefix>
                        Only list items beginning with the prefix.
  -d <delim>, --delimiter <delim>
                        Roll up items with the given delimiter. For containers
                        only. See OpenStack Swift API documentation for what
                        this means.
  -j, --json            Display listing information in json
  --versions            Display listing information for all versions
  -H, --header <header:value>
                        Adds a custom request header to use for listing.

Create an object container

Create the container named "flex-container01":

swift post flex-container01

If you like, make the container public:

swift post --header "X-Container-Read: .r:*" flex-container01

Verify the container's configuration:

swift stat flex-container01

Upload files to the container

Upload the entire contents of a folder to the container:

swift upload flex-container01 example-files/

Example

$ swift upload flex-container01 example-files/
example-docs/readme.md
example-docs/image01.jpg
example-docs/image02.png

Uploading an entire folder will add that prefix to your filenames inside the container.

swift list flex-container01

Example

$ swift list flex-container01
example-docs/readme.md
example-docs/image01.jpg
example-docs/image02.png
document01.rtf
document02.rtf

Filter the display of files only with the prefix by using the --prefix argument:

swift list flex-container01 --prefix example-docs

Example

$ swift list flex-container01 --prefix example-docs
example-docs/readme.md
example-docs/image01.jpg
example-docs/image02.png

Downloading files

When the container is public, you can access each file using a specific URL, made up of your region's endpoint, the name of your container, the prefix (if any) of your object, and finally, the object name.

<REGIONAL_ENDPOINT>/v1/AUTHxxx/flex-container01/example-docs/readme.md

Download a single file from the container:

swift download flex-container01 document01.rtf

Using the swift client to download multiple files with the same prefix:

swift download flex-container01 --prefix example-docs

Deleting containers or objects

swift delete flex-container01 document01.rtf

Example

$ swift delete flex-container01 document01.rtf
document01.rtf

Similar to downloading, you can delete multiple files with the same prefix:

swift delete flex-container01 example-docs/*

Example

$ swift delete flex-container01 example-docs/*
example-docs/readme.md
example-docs/image01.jpg
example-docs/image02.png

Deleting a container:

swift delete flex-container01

Example

$ swift delete flex-container01
document01.rtf
document02.rtf

Deleting a container will delete all files in the container.

Setting and removing object expiration

Swift objects can be scheduled to expire by setting either the X-Delete-At or X-Delete-After header.

Once the object expires, swift will no longer serve the object, and it will be deleted.

Expire at a specific time

Obtain the current Unix epoch timestamp by running date +%s.

Set an object to expire at an absolute Unix epoch timestamp:

swift post flex-container01 document01.rtf -H "X-Delete-At:UNIX_EPOCH_TIMESTAMP"

Example

$ swift post flex-container01 document01.rtf -H "X-Delete-At:1711732649"

Verify the header has been applied to the object:

swift stat flex-container01 document01.rtf

Expire after a number of seconds

Set an object to expire after a relative amount of time, in seconds:

swift post flex-container01 document01.rtf -H "X-Delete-After:SECONDS"

Example

$ swift post flex-container01 document01.rtf -H "X-Delete-After:42"

The X-Delete-After header will be converted to X-Delete-At.

Verify the header has been applied to the object:

swift stat flex-container01 document01.rtf

Remove the expire header

If you no longer want the object to expire, you can remove the X-Delete-At header:

swift post flex-container01 document01.rtf -H "X-Delete-At:"

Additional documentation

Additional documentation can be found at the official swift client site, on the Openstack Documentation Site.\ https://docs.openstack.org/python-openstackclient/latest/