seaweedfs/REST_API.md

SeaweedFS HTTP REST API

SeaweedFS exposes three HTTP surfaces:

Service	Default port	Addressing
Filer	8888	File system paths (/dir/name)
Master	9333	File id assignment and cluster topology
Volume server	8080	File content by file id (vid,fid)

Most clients only need the filer API (paths) or the S3 API. The master and volume APIs are the lower-level blob store interface.

Conventions applying to all three:

• Responses are JSON unless noted otherwise. Append &pretty=y to pretty-print.
• A file id (fid) has the form volumeId,fileKeyCookie, e.g. 3,01637037d6. An optional suffix selects a reserved id from a count assignment (3,01637037d6_1, _2, ...), and an optional extension (3,01637037d6.jpg) sets the content type on reads.
• replication is a 3-digit replica placement xyz: x copies in other data centers, y on other racks in the same data center, z on other volume servers on the same rack. 000 = no replication, 001 = one copy on the same rack, 010 = one copy on a different rack, 100 = one copy in another data center, 200 = two copies in two other data centers, 110 = one copy in another data center plus one on another rack.
• ttl units: m minute, h hour, d day, w week, M month, y year.

Filer API (port 8888)

The filer presents a POSIX-like namespace over the volume servers.

Upload a file

# PUT the raw body to the target path
curl -T /home/chris/myphoto.jpg "http://localhost:8888/dir/myphoto.jpg"

# or POST as multipart form (the part filename becomes the entry name)
curl -F file=@/home/chris/myphoto.jpg "http://localhost:8888/dir/"

Response 201 Created:

{"name":"myphoto.jpg","size":43234,"eTag":"0x6c656...","mtime":"...","chunks":[...]}

Query parameters:

Parameter	Description	Default
collection	collection name	empty
replication	replica placement code	filer default
ttl	file expiration, e.g. 3d	never
disk	disk type to store on	filer default
fsync	true fsyncs on the volume server	false
dataCenter	preferred data center	empty
rack	preferred rack	empty
dataNode	preferred volume server	empty
saveInside	store small content inside the metadata instead of a volume	false
maxMB	split the upload into chunks of this many MB	filer -maxMB
mode	unix permission bits, e.g. 0644	0660
op	append appends to an existing file	overwrite
skipCheckParentDir	true skips the parent-directory existence check	false

Create a directory

curl -X POST "http://localhost:8888/dir/newdir/"

A POST to a path ending in / with no content creates the directory, including missing parents.

Read a file

curl "http://localhost:8888/dir/myphoto.jpg"

Supports Range requests (Accept-Ranges: bytes), ETag, and the If-None-Match / If-Modified-Since conditional headers. HEAD returns headers only. Entry headers stored as extended attributes are echoed back, minus internal Seaweed- and xattr- keys.

Entry metadata instead of content:

curl "http://localhost:8888/dir/myphoto.jpg?metadata=true"

metadata=true&resolveManifest=true additionally resolves chunked-manifest entries into their real chunk list.

List a directory

curl -H "Accept: application/json" "http://localhost:8888/dir/?limit=10&lastFileName=a.jpg"

Parameter	Description	Default
limit	max entries per page	filer -dirListLimit
lastFileName	resume listing after this entry name	empty
namePattern	include only names matching the wildcard	empty
namePatternExclude	exclude names matching the wildcard	empty

The JSON response carries Path, Entries, Limit, LastFileName, ShouldDisplayLoadMore, and EmptyFolder. Without the Accept header the filer renders its HTML browser.

Move and copy

curl -X POST "http://localhost:8888/dir/newname.jpg?mv.from=/dir/myphoto.jpg"
curl -X POST "http://localhost:8888/dir/copy.jpg?cp.from=/dir/myphoto.jpg"

mv.from renames or moves the source to the request path (204 No Content). cp.from copies it.

Append

curl -T chunk2.bin "http://localhost:8888/dir/file.bin?op=append"

Delete

curl -X DELETE "http://localhost:8888/dir/myphoto.jpg"
curl -X DELETE "http://localhost:8888/dir/?recursive=true"

Parameter	Description	Default
recursive	delete a non-empty directory tree	false; when the filer runs with filer.options.recursive_delete=true, deletes are recursive unless recursive=false
ignoreRecursiveError	keep deleting remaining entries after an error	false
skipChunkDeletion	remove only the metadata, keep volume data	false

Tagging

Tags are carried as Seaweed--prefixed request headers, not query parameters; ?tagging selects the tagging handler and ?tagging=K1,K2 lists the keys to remove. Header names are canonicalized on write (Seaweed-k1 is stored as Seaweed-K1), and the delete list is matched case-sensitively against the stored names.

curl -X PUT -H "Seaweed-k1: v1" -H "Seaweed-k2: v2" "http://localhost:8888/dir/file.jpg?tagging"
curl -X DELETE "http://localhost:8888/dir/file.jpg?tagging=K1,K2"

Read by file id

curl "http://localhost:8888/?proxyChunkId=3,01637037d6"

The filer proxies the chunk read to the right volume server, so only the filer port needs to be exposed.

Resumable uploads

The filer serves the TUS protocol for resumable uploads (POST, PATCH, HEAD on upload URLs). It is enabled by default at /.tus; -tusBasePath changes the endpoint base path.

Health

GET /healthz and GET /readyz return 200 OK.

Master API (port 9333)

Write-affecting endpoints are automatically proxied to the current leader, so any master in the quorum can serve them.

Assign a file id

curl "http://localhost:9333/dir/assign?count=1&replication=001&collection=turbo&dataCenter=dc1&ttl=3d&disk=ssd"
{"count":1,"fid":"3,01637037d6","url":"127.0.0.1:8080","publicUrl":"localhost:8080"}

Upload the file content to http://<url>/<fid> afterwards. With count>1, use <fid>_1, <fid>_2, ... for the additional ids.

Parameter	Description	Default
count	file ids to reserve	1
collection	collection name	empty
dataCenter	preferred data center	empty
rack	preferred rack	empty
dataNode	preferred volume server	empty
replication	replica placement	master -defaultReplication
ttl	file expiration, e.g. 3d	never
disk	disk type	empty
dataSize	expected file size in bytes	0
preallocate	bytes to preallocate for new volumes	master -volumePreallocate
writableVolumeCount	grow this many volumes when none are writable	master default
memoryMapMaxSizeMb	memory-mapped file size (Windows)	0

Look up a volume or file id

curl "http://localhost:9333/dir/lookup?volumeId=3"
{"locations":[{"url":"localhost:8080","publicUrl":"localhost:8080"}]}

Parameter	Description	Default
volumeId	volume id; a full vid,fid is accepted too	required
fileId	like volumeId, but also returns a write JWT when security is on	empty
collection	speeds up the lookup	empty
read	yes generates a read JWT instead of a write JWT	empty

Store a file in one call

curl -F file=@/home/chris/report.pdf "http://localhost:9333/submit?collection=turbo&replication=001"
{"fileName":"report.pdf","fid":"3,01637037d6","fileUrl":"localhost:8080/3,01637037d6","size":43234,"eTag":"0x6c656..."}

POST /submit accepts multipart file data plus the dir/assign placement parameters (count, collection, dataCenter, rack, replication, ttl, disk), assigns a file id, uploads to the volume server, and returns the result.

Redirect to a file

curl -v "http://localhost:9333/3,01637037d6"

GET /{fileId} answers 308 Permanent Redirect to a volume server holding the file, preserving the query string (e.g. image-resize parameters).

Cluster status

curl "http://localhost:9333/dir/status?pretty=y"   # full topology tree
curl "http://localhost:9333/vol/status?pretty=y"   # every volume on every node
curl "http://localhost:9333/collection/info?collection=turbo"
curl "http://localhost:9333/collection/info?collection=turbo&detail=true"

collection/info returns aggregated TotalSize, FileCount, UsedSize, VolumeCount; detail=true splits them per volume layout.

Grow volumes

curl "http://localhost:9333/vol/grow?count=4&replication=001&collection=turbo&ttl=5d&disk=ssd&dataCenter=dc1&rack=rack1"
{"count":4}

count is required; the placement parameters match dir/assign. One volume serves one write at a time, so pre-allocated volumes raise write concurrency.

Vacuum deleted space

curl "http://localhost:9333/vol/vacuum?garbageThreshold=0.4"

Parameter	Description	Default
garbageThreshold	minimum deleted-bytes ratio before a volume is compacted	master -garbageThreshold (0.3)

Vacuuming makes a volume read-only, copies live needles to a new volume, and swaps it in.

Delete a collection

curl "http://localhost:9333/col/delete?collection=benchmark"

Deletes all volumes of the collection, including erasure-coded shards. 204 No Content on success.

Health

curl -I "http://localhost:9333/healthz"     # liveness
curl -I "http://localhost:9333/readyz"      # readiness
curl "http://localhost:9333/"               # web UI

Volume server API (port 8080)

The volume server stores file content by file id. Clients normally get the volume URL from dir/assign or dir/lookup.

Upload

curl -F file=@/home/chris/myphoto.jpg "http://127.0.0.1:8080/3,01637037d6"
{"name":"myphoto.jpg","size":43234,"eTag":"0x6c656...","mime":"image/jpeg","contentMd5":"..."}

PUT or POST the body (or a multipart file part) to /{vid},{fid}. 204 No Content is returned when the content is unchanged. ?ts=<unix> sets the stored modification time.

Read

curl "http://127.0.0.1:8080/3,01637037d6"
curl "http://127.0.0.1:8080/3,01637037d6.jpg"        # sets Content-Type from the extension

Supports Range and HEAD. Image files can be resized server-side:

Parameter	Description
width, height	resize bounds in pixels
mode	fit (contain) or fill (cover); omitted resizes to width/height
crop_x1, crop_y1, crop_x2, crop_y2	explicit crop rectangle
cm	false returns the chunk-manifest blob instead of resolving it
readDeleted	true reads soft-deleted needles
collection	passed through redirects for the right volume

Delete

curl -X DELETE "http://127.0.0.1:8080/3,01637037d6"
{"size":43234}

?ts=<unix> sets the deletion timestamp. Replicated volumes propagate the delete to every replica.

Status

curl "http://localhost:8080/status?pretty=y"  # disk and volume inventory
curl -I "http://localhost:8080/healthz"       # liveness/readiness

OPTIONS preflights answer CORS headers. When -port.public differs from -port, the volume server opens a separate read-only public listener on that port; -publicUrl sets the address it advertises to clients.