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Bucket Versioning with Linode Object Storage

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Note
Linode Object Storage is now available to the general public in the Newark and Frankfurt data centers! For billing information on Object Storage, see our Object Storage Pricing and Limitations guide.
Caution
Object Storage is similar to a subscription service. Once enabled, you will be billed at the flat rate regardless of whether or not there are active buckets on your account. You must Cancel Object Storage to stop billing for this service.

Linode Object Storage allows for bucket versioning so that you can retain different versions of your objects within buckets. This makes it easy to save older versions of objects, as well as quickly revert to an object’s previous state.

In this guide, you will learn about:

Before You Begin

You should familiarize yourself with the basics of Linode Object Storage by reading the How to Use Linode Object Storage guide.

You’ll also need to have a bucket with which you want to enable bucket versioning. Follow the Create a Bucket section of the How to Use Linode Object Storage guide if you do not already have one.

Bucket Versioning

Bucket versioning works by saving separate versions of objects in a bucket. When bucket versioning is enabled, an object that is uploaded to a bucket won’t overwrite a previous copy of that object. Instead, each version of the object is given a different ID number and saved.

When attempting to view the object over HTTP or to download the object without supplying a version ID, the latest version of the object is returned. If you delete an object with bucket versioning enabled, a delete marker is inserted into the bucket to report that the object has been deleted, but the bucket will retain all previous versions of the object. Any further retrieval operations will return the most recent version of an object.

Caution
Every version of an object counts towards the monthly billable storage quota. While saving a few revisions is probably not something to worry about, large version controlled buckets with many thousands of objects will see a noticeable increase in storage space demands, and should be monitored carefully.

Cyberduck

Cyberduck is a GUI application that supports a wide variety of file transfer protocols, including S3-compatible Object Storage. For basic Cyberduck functionality, such as creating buckets and uploading objects, consult our How to Use Linode Object Storage guide.

Note
If you don’t have Cyberduck set up on your computer, visit the Install and Configure Cyberduck of the How to Use Linode Object Storage guide.

To use bucket versioning with Cyberduck:

  1. Enable bucket versioning for your bucket. Right-click or control-click on the bucket and select Info from the bucket’s context menu, or select File > Info from the menu bar.

    Select "Info" from the bucket's context menu.

  2. A settings menu will appear. Select the S3 menu heading.

    The "Info" settings menu.

  3. In the Versioning section, check the checkbox labeled Bucket Versioning.

    Select the S3 menu heading to view the S3 specific bucket settings.

  4. Your bucket will now retain previous versions of the objects within it. To test this functionality, create an example text document on your computer and add some text to it:

    test.txt 
    1

    This is version 1 of the object.

    Upload this file to your bucket by dragging it into Cyberduck, or by selecting File > Upload from the menu bar.

  5. Now, edit the same file on your computer and make a small change. We will use this change to demonstrate bucket versioning.

    test.txt 
    1

    This is version 2 of the object.

    Save the change and upload the file to your bucket just as you did in the previous step. Cyberduck will prompt you this time to confirm that you’d like to upload the file. Though the dropdown menu says Overwrite, the file will not be overwritten.

    Confirm that you'd like to upload the file to your bucket.

  6. You now have two objects in your bucket, though initially you may only see one. To view the different saved versions of your object, select View from the menu bar and click on Show Hidden Files.

    You should now see two files in your bucket, with the hidden file that you’ve just revealed being grayed-out. This grayed-out file is the older version of the file that you uploaded first.

    Note
    You may have to click the Refresh button in Cyberduck’s toolbar to see the hidden files.

    Viewing the hidden files, there are now two files in the bucket.

  7. Double click the grayed-out version of the file (the one with the earlier modified date) to download the file. Once opened, you’ll see that the file contains the contents of the first revision.

  8. To revert to a previous file revision, right-click or control-click on an object and select Revert. This will create a new object in the bucket, preserving the state of the previous two objects. At this point the current object will contain the contents of revision one, the second object will contain the contents of revision two, and the third object will contain to the contents of revision one. You can see, then, how bucket versioning works to maintain a stateful history.

    Note
    Each file has its own permissions. If you’d like to view objects via HTTP, then you’ll need to manually set the permissions for each object to Everyone each time you upload or revert to a different version of the object, as described in the How to Use Linode Object Storage guide.

Delete Versioned Objects in Cyberduck

You can use Cyberduck to manually delete an object and all of its versions that are stored in a bucket. The steps covered in this section are only useful if you have a few objects and a few corresponding versions in a bucket.

Note

If your bucket has complex directory hierarchies or if it contains more than a few objects and object versions, you should use lifecycle policies to delete unwanted versions of your objects.

You may also consider writing a utility script that uses the AWS CLI to iterate over and delete all of a bucket’s objects, versions, and delete markers.

  1. Viewing all of your buckets, double-click on the bucket whose objects you’d like to delete.

    Viewing all of your buckets, double-click on the bucket whose objects you'd like to delete.

  2. Viewing all of your bucket’s objects and their versions, ensure your bucket has Show Hidden Files enabled. In Cyberduck’s menu bar, click on View and select Show Hidden Files. A check will be displayed next to the option when it’s enabled.

    Viewing all of your bucket's objects, ensure your bucket has *Show Hidden Files* enabled.

  3. Bulk delete all of the bucket’s objects. This can be done by clicking and dragging to select all of your bucket’s objects. Then, right click on the objects and select delete from the menu.

    Note
    If you delete an object with bucket versioning enabled, a delete marker is inserted into the bucket to report that the object has been deleted.

    Bulk delete all the bucket's objects. This can be done by clicking and dragging to select all of your bucket's objects.

  4. After your initial bulk delete, you will see two remaining greyed out items. They correspond the latest version of the object you deleted and its delete marker. Follow the same step as above to delete the remaining object and its marker. Once this is completed, your bucket should be empty.

  5. (Optional) Navigate back to Cyberduck’s buckets listing page.

  6. (Optional) Right click on the bucket you would like to delete and select delete from the menu.

    Bulk delete all the bucket's objects. This can be done by clicking and dragging to select all of your bucket's objects.

    Your bucket and all its versioned objects should now be deleted.

AWS CLI

Because Linode Object Storage is compatible with S3, several tools that are designed to work with S3 can be adapted to Linode Object Storage, like the AWS CLI.

Installing the AWS CLI

The AWS CLI can be installed using pip, the Python package manager, on macOS and Linux:

pip install awscli

If you are using Windows, you can download the CLI by visiting the AWS CLI homepage.

You’ll need to configure the AWS CLI before you can use it. To do so, run the configure command:

aws configure

You’ll be prompted to enter your AWS access key and AWS secret access key, but you can enter your Linode access key and Linode secret access key here instead. You can leave the other fields blank.

To use bucket versioning with the AWS CLI:

  1. Turn on bucket versioning with the put-bucket-versioning command. Supply the Linode Object Storage endpoint and bucket name to the command. In the below example, the bucket is named bucket-versioning-example:

    aws s3api put-bucket-versioning --endpoint=http://us-east-1.linodeobjects.com --bucket=bucket-versioning-example --versioning-configuration Status=Enabled

  2. The above command won’t prompt any response. To check on the status of bucket-versioning, issue the get-bucket-versioning command, again supplying the Linode Object Storage endpoint and your bucket name:

    aws s3api get-bucket-versioning --endpoint=http://us-east-1.linodeobjects.com --bucket=bucket-versioning-example

    You should see output like the following:

      
{
    "Status": "Enabled",
    "MFADelete": "Disabled"
}

    Here you can see that bucket versioning has been successfully applied to the bucket because the Status is set to Enabled.

  3. To test bucket versioning, create an example text document on your computer and add some text to it:

    test.txt 
    1

    This is version 1 of the file.

  4. Upload the file to your bucket using the put-object command, again supplying the Linode Object Storage endpoint and your bucket name:

    aws s3api put-object --endpoint=http://us-east-1.linodeobjects.com  --bucket=bucket-versioning-example --key test.txt --body test.txt

    In the above command, the key is the name you would like to give the object after it is uploaded, and the body is the local filename of the object. These can be different.

    Note
    When retrieving the file you will need to give the object’s key rather than it’s local filename.

  5. You should see output like the following:

      
{
    "ETag": "\"9a7b64c98b066602b21f869ae7cd673a\"",
    "VersionId": "4ACJQUNQ1ORV2oZ1SRE7l2M7nTjD1pv"
}

    Take note of the VersionId, which will be referenced later.

  6. Now, modify the local file to indicate that this file is a different version than the one you previously uploaded:

    test.txt 
    1

    This is version 2 of the file.

  7. Upload the modified version of the file to Object Storage:

    aws s3api put-object --endpoint=http://us-east-1.linodeobjects.com  --bucket=bucket-versioning-example --key test.txt --body test.txt

    You should see output like the following:

      
{
    "ETag": "\"38b0d2ff1c03df82aea67222983d337e\"",
    "VersionId": "cdw7Lz4CPdm3wAJwBIJ6NhOUDqZo-Y7"
}

    Note that the VersionId has changed to reflect the newer version of the object.

  8. You now have two versions of the object in your bucket. To view these objects, use the list-object-versions command:

    aws s3api list-object-versions --endpoint=http://us-east-1.linodeobjects.com --bucket=bucket-versioning-example

    You should see output like the following:

      
{
    "Versions": [
        {
            "ETag": "\"38b0d2ff1c03df82aea67222983d337e\"",
            "Size": 6,
            "StorageClass": "STANDARD",
            "Key": "test.txt",
            "VersionId": "cdw7Lz4CPdm3wAJwBIJ6NhOUDqZo-Y7",
            "IsLatest": true,
            "LastModified": "2019-09-18T11:51:33.070Z",
            "Owner": {
                "DisplayName": "a9354920-007a-4480-9271-06d3ff7f8426",
                "ID": "a9354920-007a-4480-9271-06d3ff7f8426"
            }
        },
        {
            "ETag": "\"9a7b64c98b066602b21f869ae7cd673a\"",
            "Size": 6,
            "StorageClass": "STANDARD",
            "Key": "test.txt",
            "VersionId": "4ACJQUNQ1ORV2oZ1SRE7l2M7nTjD1pv",
            "IsLatest": false,
            "LastModified": "2019-09-18T11:51:23.041Z",
            "Owner": {
                "DisplayName": "a9354920-007a-4480-9271-06d3ff7f8426",
                "ID": "a9354920-007a-4480-9271-06d3ff7f8426"
            }
        }
    ]
}

    Each version of the test.txt object is represented in the output.

  9. To download a previous version of an object, use the get-object command and supply the version-id of the earliest copy of the object:

    aws s3api get-object --endpoint=http://us-east-1.linodeobjects.com --bucket=bucket-versioning-example --key=test.txt --version-id=4ACJQUNQ1ORV2oZ1SRE7l2M7nTjD1pv test_old.txt

    Be sure to include an output filename for the downloaded object as the last parameter. In the above command the output file is named test_old.txt.

    You should see output like the following:

      
{
    "AcceptRanges": "bytes",
    "LastModified": "Wed, 18 Sep 2019 11:51:23 GMT",
    "ContentLength": 6,
    "ETag": "\"9a7b64c98b066602b21f869ae7cd673a\"",
    "VersionId": "4ACJQUNQ1ORV2oZ1SRE7l2M7nTjD1pv",
    "ContentType": "binary/octet-stream",
    "Metadata": {
        "version-id": "r71GBm28-B2ynT89nAdAEIpXXZwUtqr"
    }
}

    Open the downloaded file and confirm that the first version of the file was downloaded properly.

  10. To restore to a previous version of an object using the AWS CLI, you can download the version you want to restore to and then re-upload that file. Alternatively, if there is only one newer version of the object, you can delete the newer version of the object and Object Storage will automatically serve the next most recent version.

Delete Versioned Objects with AWS CLI

To delete an object version using the AWS CLI, use this command:

aws s3api delete-object --endpoint=http://us-east-1.linodeobjects.com --bucket=bucket-versioning-example --key=test.txt  --version-id=4ACJQUNQ1ORV2oZ1SRE7l2M7nTjD1pv

This command will not give you any output. To see the results, run the list-object-versions command again.

  
{
    "Versions": [
        {
            "ETag": "\"38b0d2ff1c03df82aea67222983d337e\"",
            "Size": 6,
            "StorageClass": "STANDARD",
            "Key": "test.txt",
            "VersionId": "cdw7Lz4CPdm3wAJwBIJ6NhOUDqZo-Y7",
            "IsLatest": true,
            "LastModified": "2019-09-18T11:51:33.070Z",
            "Owner": {
                "DisplayName": "a9354920-007a-4480-9271-06d3ff7f8426",
                "ID": "a9354920-007a-4480-9271-06d3ff7f8426"
            }
        }
    ]
}

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

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