Your own S3 bucket on a raspberry pi!

MinIO is a high-performance, S3-compatible object storage solution that runs seamlessly in Kubernetes. It’s a great alternative to AWS S3 for self-hosted environments and is ideal for cloud-native applications. In this guide, we’ll set up MinIO in a Kubernetes cluster, ensuring high availability and persistence.

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📌 Prerequisites

Before proceeding, ensure you have the following:

• A running Kubernetes cluster (K3s, MicroK8s, or any standard K8s distribution).
• kubectl configured to interact with the cluster.
• Helm installed (for easy deployment).
• A Persistent Storage solution (like NFS, Longhorn, or local PersistentVolumes).

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🛠️ Step 1: Create a Namespace for MinIO

First, we’ll create a dedicated namespace for MinIO to keep things organized:

kubectl create namespace minio

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⚙️ Step 2: Deploy MinIO Using Helm

We’ll use Helm to deploy MinIO in a simple, scalable, and manageable way.

🔹 Add the MinIO Helm Repository

helm repo add minio https://charts.min.io/
helm repo update

🔹 Install MinIO

helm install minio minio/minio \
  --namespace minio \
  --set accessKey="admin" \
  --set secretKey="supersecret" \
  --set persistence.enabled=true \
  --set persistence.size=10Gi

🔹 This command does the following:

• Installs MinIO in the minio namespace.
• Sets access credentials (you can change these).
• Enables persistent storage with a 10Gi volume.

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🔍 Step 3: Verify MinIO Deployment

Check if MinIO is running:

kubectl get pods -n minio

You should see something like this:

NAME                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
minio-5b6f8b5f6d-xyz   1/1     Running   0          1m

To check logs:

kubectl logs -n minio -l app=minio

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🌍 Step 4: Expose MinIO

🔹 Using a LoadBalancer (if available)

kubectl expose deployment minio --type=LoadBalancer --port=9000 -n minio

🔹 Using Ingress (Recommended for Production)

If you’re using an Ingress Controller like Traefik or Nginx, create an Ingress resource to access MinIO via a domain:

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: minio-ingress
  namespace: minio
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: "traefik"
spec:
  rules:
    - host: minio.yourdomain.com
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: minio
                port:
                  number: 9000

Then apply it:

kubectl apply -f minio-ingress.yaml

Make sure your DNS (GoDaddy, Cloudflare, etc.) points minio.yourdomain.com to your cluster’s external IP.

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🔑 Step 5: Access MinIO Web UI

Once MinIO is exposed, access it via:

🔗 http://minio.yourdomain.com

Use the credentials you set (admin / supersecret).

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🎯 Step 6: Configure a MinIO Bucket

To create a bucket via kubectl:

kubectl exec -n minio -it $(kubectl get pods -n minio -l app=minio -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}") -- mc alias set local http://minio:9000 admin supersecret
kubectl exec -n minio -it $(kubectl get pods -n minio -l app=minio -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}") -- mc mb local/mybucket

Now you have a bucket named mybucket ready to use.

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🚀 Conclusion

You’ve successfully deployed MinIO in Kubernetes! 🎉

✅ MinIO is running on your cluster
✅ It’s accessible via Ingress (or LoadBalancer)
✅ You can store and retrieve objects using the MinIO API

Now you can integrate MinIO with your apps, use it for backups, or replace AWS S3 in your workflows.

🔥 Next Steps:

• Secure MinIO using TLS with cert-manager.
• Set up MinIO in Distributed Mode for High Availability.
• Integrate MinIO with external services like PostgreSQL, Redis, and more.

Happy coding! 🚀💡