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Sourav Chatterjee
Sourav Chatterjee

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AWS S3 as Docker volumes

Attaching an S3 Bucket as NFS Volume in Docker

We can attach an S3 bucket as a mounted Volume in docker.

We need to use a Plugin to achieve this.

The plugin is

rexray/rexray

We will first install the plugin

docker plugin install rexray/s3fs:latest S3FS_REGION=us-east-2 S3FS_OPTIONS="allow_other,iam_role=auto,umask=000" --grant-all-permissions
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We will have to install the plugin as above ,as it gives access to the plugin to S3.

Once installed we can check using

docker plugin ls
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Now we can mount the S3 bucket using the volume driver like below to test the mount.

docker run -ti --volume-driver=rexray/s3fs -v ${aws-bucket-name}:/data ubuntu sleep infinity
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Thats it the Volume has been mounted from our S3 Bucket

We can inspect the container and check if the bucket has been mounted

"Mounts": [
            {
                "Type": "volume",
                "Name": "maps-openmaps-schools",
                "Source": "",
                "Destination": "/data",
                "Driver": "rexray/s3fs:latest",
                "Mode": "",
                "RW": true,
                "Propagation": ""
            }
        ],
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We can also inspect the volume

$ docker volume inspect maps-openmaps-schools
[
    {
        "CreatedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
        "Driver": "rexray/s3fs:latest",
        "Labels": null,
        "Mountpoint": "",
        "Name": "maps-openmaps-schools",
        "Options": null,
        "Scope": "global",
        "Status": {
            "availabilityZone": "",
            "fields": null,
            "iops": 0,
            "name": "maps-openmaps-schools",
            "server": "s3fs",
            "service": "s3fs",
            "size": 0,
            "type": ""
        }
    }
]
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Top comments (6)

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bonespiked profile image
bonespiked

Remember that s3 is NOT a file system, but an object store - while mounting IS an incredibly useful capability - I wouldn't leverage anything more than file read or create - don't try to append a file, don't try to use file system trickery (e.g. links, fs event listening, etc....).

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darell profile image
Darell Estren

Does anyone know why I have this error when installing the plugin? Error response from daemon: dial unix /run/docker/plugins/36e9d9fa7a4bc75983/rexray.sock: connect: no such file or directory

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raphink profile image
Raphaël Pinson

Thanks for that post.

How are the perfs?

I remember making an s3fs-based system in Kubernetes some time ago, and the perfs were pretty bad...

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chattes profile image
Sourav Chatterjee

Will be keeping an eye on the performance. I am loading a pretty big file , have not tested as yet

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zahid313 profile image
zahid313

How to provide AWS access key and secret key?

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jrykowskihuron profile image
jrykowski-huron

The rexray/s3fs plugin uses parameters S3FS_ACCESSKEY/S3FS_SECRETKEY for the s3fs or EBS_ACCESSKEY/EBS_SECRETKEY for the ebs file system type.

Example to install the plugin and use values from environment variables:

docker plugin install rexray/s3fs:latest S3FS_REGION=us-east-2 S3FS_OPTIONS="allow_other,iam_role=auto,umask=000" S3FS_ACCESSKEY=$AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID S3FS_SECRETKEY=$AWS_SECRET_KEY_ID --grant-all-permissions