ossfs allows you to mount Alibaba Cloud OSS buckets to local files in Linux systems. In the system, you can quickly use the local file system to perform operations on OSS objects, achieving data sharing.

Main features

The ossfs is constructed based on S3FS and incorporates all S3FS functions. The main features include:

  • Supports most functions of the POSIX file system, including file reading/writing, directories, link operations, permissions, UID/GID, and extended attributes.
  • Uploads large files using the OSS multipart function.
  • Guarantees data integrity with MD5 checksum.

Limitations

Compared with a local file system, the functions and performance provided by ossfs have certain limitations. These include:

  • Random write or any appended operations causes rewrite of the entire file.
  • The performance of metadata operations, such as list directory, is poor because the system has to remotely access the OSS server.
  • The file/folder rename operation is not atomic.
  • When multiple clients are attached to a single OSS bucket, you must coordinate the actions of each client manually. For example, you must avoid multiple clients writing the same file.
  • Hard link is not supported.
  • This system is not suitable for highly-concurrent read/write scenarios, as this greatly increases the system load.

Installation and use

  • Installation package download
    Released Linux  Download
    Ubuntu 16.04 (x64) ossfs_1.80.5_ubuntu16.04_amd64.deb
    Ubuntu 14.04 (x64) ossfs_1.80.5_ubuntu14.04_amd64.deb
    CentOS 7.0 (x64) ossfs_1.80.5_centos7.0_x86_64.rpm
    CentOS 6.5 (x64) ossfs_1.80.5_centos6.5_x86_64.rpm

    Due to the lower version of the Linux distribution, the kernel version is relatively lower. The ossfs is prone to disconnection or other problems during the running process. Therefore, users are advised to upgrade the operating system to CentOS 7.0 or Ubuntu 14.04 or later.

  • Installation method
    • Run the following commands to install Ubuntu:
      sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gdebi-core
sudo gdebi your_ossfs_package
    • Run the following command to install CentOS 6.5 or later:
      sudo yum localinstall your_ossfs_package
    • Run the following command to install CentOS 5 or later:
      sudo yum localinstall your_ossfs_package --nogpgcheck
  • Usage
    Set bucket name and AccessKeyId/Secret and save it to the /etc/passwd-ossfs file. Note that the permissions for this file must be set correctly. We suggest setting it to 640. 
    echo my-bucket:my-access-key-id:my-access-key-secret > /etc/passwd-ossfs
chmod 640 /etc/passwd-ossfs
    Mount the OSS bucket  to the specified directory. 
    ossfs my-bucket my-mount-point -ourl=my-oss-endpoint

    Example

    Mount the bucket my-bucket to the /tmp/ossfs directory. The AccessKeyId is faint, the AccessKeySecret is 123, and the OSS endpoint is http://oss-cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com. 

    echo my-bucket:faint:123 > /etc/passwd-ossfs
chmod 640 /etc/passwd-ossfs
mkdir /tmp/ossfs
ossfs my-bucket /tmp/ossfs -ourl=http://oss-cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com
    Notice
    If you use an Alibaba Cloud ECS instance to provide ossfs services, you can use the intranet endpoints. In this example, you can replace the OSS endpoint with oss-cn-hangzhou-internal.aliyuncs.com to save bandwidth costs. For more information about intranet endpoints, see Regions and endpoints

    Unmount the bucket: 

    fusermount -u /tmp/ossfs

    For more information, see GitHub ossfs.

Release log

For more information, see GitHub ChangeLog