Working with a public Swift container

Prerequisites

In order to create a Swift container, be sure that you have installed and configured the required command-line interface (CLI) tools.

Creating the container

To create a public container (that is, one whose contents can be accessed without credentials), use the following command:

OpenStack CLISwift CLI

$ openstack container create --public public-container
+---------------------------------------+------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
| account                               | container        | x-trans-id                                         |
+---------------------------------------+------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
| AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88 | public-container | tx00000d4f7d958e3e0c9aa-00638dc6ac-300de11-default |
+---------------------------------------+------------------+----------------------------------------------------+

$ swift post --read-acl ".r:*,.rlistings" public-container

This command produces no output.

Retrieving container information

To create a list of all containers accessible with your current set of credentials, use this command:

OpenStack CLISwift CLI

$ openstack container list
+-------------------+
| Name              |
+-------------------+
| private-container |
| public-container  |
+-------------------+

$ swift list
private-container
public-container

To retrieve more detailed information about an individual container, you can also use this command. Observe that the Read access control list (ACL) contains the entry .r:*,.rlistings, which enables read access to all objects in a container, and to a list of objects included in the container.

OpenStack CLISwift CLI

openstack container show public-container
+----------------+---------------------------------------+
| Field          | Value                                 |
+----------------+---------------------------------------+
| account        | AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88 |
| bytes_used     | 0                                     |
| container      | public-container                      |
| object_count   | 0                                     |
| read_acl       | .r:*,.rlistings                       |
| storage_policy | default-placement                     |
+----------------+---------------------------------------+

$ swift stat public-container
                      Account: AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88
                    Container: public-container
                      Objects: 1
                        Bytes: 12
                     Read ACL: .r:*,.rlistings
                    Write ACL:
                      Sync To:
                     Sync Key:
                  X-Timestamp: 1670235997.87682
X-Container-Bytes-Used-Actual: 0
             X-Storage-Policy: default-placement
              X-Storage-Class: STANDARD
                Last-Modified: Mon, 05 Dec 2022 10:26:37 GMT
                   X-Trans-Id: tx00000cd9e7c26095ab862-00638dc78a-301ddeb-default
       X-Openstack-Request-Id: tx00000cd9e7c26095ab862-00638dc78a-301ddeb-default
                Accept-Ranges: bytes
                 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Uploading data

To upload an object into the container, create a local test file:

echo "hello world" > testobj.txt

Then, upload the file (as a Swift object) into your container, and read back its metadata:

OpenStack CLISwift CLI

$ openstack object create public-container testobj.txt
+-------------+------------------+----------------------------------+
| object      | container        | etag                             |
+-------------+------------------+----------------------------------+
| testobj.txt | public-container | 6f5902ac237024bdd0c176cb93063dc4 |
+-------------+------------------+----------------------------------+

$ openstack object show public-container testobj.txt
+----------------+---------------------------------------+
| Field          | Value                                 |
+----------------+---------------------------------------+
| account        | AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88 |
| container      | public-container                      |
| content-length | 12                                    |
| content-type   | text/plain                            |
| etag           | 6f5902ac237024bdd0c176cb93063dc4      |
| last-modified  | Mon, 05 Dec 2022 10:28:09 GMT         |
| object         | testobj.txt                           |
+----------------+---------------------------------------+

$ swift upload public-container testobj.txt
testobj.txt

$ swift stat public-container testobj.txt
               Account: AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88
             Container: public-container
                Object: testobj.txt
          Content Type: text/plain
        Content Length: 12
         Last Modified: Mon, 05 Dec 2022 10:28:09 GMT
                  ETag: 6f5902ac237024bdd0c176cb93063dc4
         Accept-Ranges: bytes
           X-Timestamp: 1670236089.75015
            X-Trans-Id: tx0000075bca59e9149bc53-00638dc7fa-301ddeb-default
X-Openstack-Request-Id: tx0000075bca59e9149bc53-00638dc7fa-301ddeb-default

Downloading data

To download an object from your public Swift container, you can use the following commands (as with a private container):

OpenStack CLISwift CLI

$ openstack object save --file - public-container testobj.txt
hello world

The --file - option prints the file contents to stdout. If instead you want to save the object’s content to a local file, use --file <filename>.

If you omit the --file argument altogether, openstack object save will create a local file named like the object you are downloading (in this case, testobj.txt).

$ swift download -o - public-container testobj.txt
hello world

The -o - option prints the file contents to stdout. If instead you want to save the object’s content to a local file, use -o <filename>.

If you omit the -o argument altogether, swift download will create a local file named like the object you are downloading (in this case, testobj.txt).

However, this being a public container, you can also retrieve your object using any regular HTTP/HTTPS client, using a public URL. This URL is composed as follows:

1. The Swift API’s base URL, which differs by Cleura Cloud region (https://swift‑sto1hs.citycloud.com:<port>/swift/v1/),
2. the container’s account string, starting with AUTH_,
3. the container name (in our example, public-container),
4. the object name (in our example, testobj.txt).

Rather than composing the public URL manually, you can also retrieve it by parsing the CLI’s debug output:

OpenStack CLISwift CLI

$ openstack object show --debug public-container testobj.txt 2>&1 \
  | grep -o "https://.*testobj.txt"
https://swift-sto1hs.citycloud.com/swift/v1/AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88/public-container/testobj.txt
https://swift-sto1hs.citycloud.com "HEAD /swift/v1/AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88/public-container/testobj.txt
https://swift-sto1hs.citycloud.com/swift/v1/AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88/public-container/testobj.txt

$ swift stat --debug public-container testobj.txt 2>&1 \
  | grep -o "https://.*testobj.txt"
https://swift-sto1hs.citycloud.com/swift/v1/AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88/public-container/testobj.txt

Once you have retrieved your public URL, you can fetch the object’s contents using the client of your choice. This example uses curl:

$ curl https://swift-sto1hs.citycloud.com/swift/v1/AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88/public-container/testobj.txt
hello world

Public bucket accessibility via the S3 API

Once you make a container public via the Swift API, its objects also become accessible via the corresponding S3 API path.

Thus, the following URL paths allow you to retrieve the same public object:

• https://swift-sto1hs.citycloud.com/swift/v1/AUTH_30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88/public-container/testobj.txt
• https://s3-sto1hs.citycloud.com/30a7768a0ffc40359d6110f21a6e7d88:public-container/testobj.txt