Software checklist
Use the following checklist when planning the software configuration for a production, distributed MinIO deployment.
MinIO AIStor pre-requisites
Operating system
Servers must run a Linux operating system with a kernel version of 6.8 or later to access critical performance features.
The following distributions ship with appropriate kernel versions by default:
| Distribution | Default Kernel |
|---|---|
| Ubuntu 24.04 LTS | 6.8 |
| RHEL 10 | 6.12 |
| Rocky Linux 10 | 6.12 |
| AlmaLinux 10 | 6.12 |
| Oracle Linux 10 | 6.12 |
| SUSE Linux 15 SP7 | 6.4 |
See recommended distributions for additional details.
Filesystem
Drives must be formatted with the XFS filesystem. MinIO AIStor requires XFS for best performance and consistency guarantees.
- Do not use ext4.
ext4 does not honor POSIX
O_DIRECT/Fdatasyncsemantics and trades performance for consistency. - Do not use NFS volumes for distributed deployments. NFS is not strictly consistent. If you must use NFS in a distributed setup, use NFSv4 instead of NFSv3 for relatively better outcomes.
- NFS can be safely used with single drive mode deployments.
See storage requirements for drive formatting and mount guidance.
Time synchronization
All servers in a distributed deployment must have clocks synchronized to within 15 minutes of each other.
Use ntp, timedatectl, or timesyncd to synchronize time across nodes.
Check your operating system’s documentation for how to configure time synchronization.
System services
Disable or uninstall system services that index, scan, or audit the filesystem, system-level calls, or kernel-level calls. These services reduce performance due to resource contention or interception of MinIO AIStor operations.
MinIO strongly recommends disabling the following services on hosts running MinIO AIStor:
mlocateorplocateupdatedbauditd- Antivirus software (
clamav)
The above list represents the most common services known to cause performance or behavioral issues with high performance systems like MinIO AIStor. Consider removing or disabling any other service or software that functions similarly.
Alternatively, configure these services to ignore or exclude the MinIO AIStor process and all drives or drive paths accessed by MinIO AIStor.
Infrastructure and access
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| System administrator access | Root or sudo access to all remote servers in the deployment |
| Management tool | A distributed systems tool such as Ansible, Terraform, or Kubernetes. Kubernetes deployments should use the MinIO AIStor Operator. |
| Load balancer | A load balancer to handle routing of requests, such as NGINX |
| Monitoring | Prometheus or a Prometheus-compatible setup for metrics collection |
| Dashboard | Grafana or a similar Prometheus-compatible visual dashboard |
| CLI | mc installed on the local host system for command line management and support diagnostics |
Release notes
Review the MinIO AIStor Release Notes before installing or upgrading. The release notes document changes, bug fixes, security updates, and any backwards-incompatible changes between versions.
MinIO AIStor install
Install a matching version of MinIO AIStor across all nodes in the deployment.
Post-install tasks
| Task | Details |
|---|---|
| Create CLI aliases | Create an mc alias for each server with mc alias set for command line access from a local machine |
| Bucket replication | Configure bucket replication to preserve a copy of bucket contents to another location |
| Site replication | Configure site replication to synchronize contents across multiple dispersed data center locations |
| Lifecycle management | Configure object retention rules to manage when objects expire |
| Tiering | Configure object tiering to move objects to warm or cold storage locations for cost efficiency |
3rd party identity provider tasks
| Task | Details |
|---|---|
| Security Token Service | Authenticate to MinIO AIStor with STS. Enabling STS requires MinIO support through SUBNET. |