Quickstart for configuring your MinIO storage bucket for GitHub Packages

Before you can enable and configure GitHub Packages on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, you need to prepare your third-party storage solution.

MinIO offers object storage with support for the S3 API and GitHub Packages on your enterprise.

This quickstart shows you how to set up MinIO using Docker for use with GitHub Packages but you have other options for managing MinIO besides Docker. For more information about MinIO, see the official MinIO docs.

1. Choose a MinIO mode for your needs

MinIO mode	Optimized for	Storage infrastructure required
Standalone MinIO (on a single host)	Fast setup	N/A
MinIO as a NAS gateway	NAS (Network-attached storage)	NAS devices
Clustered MinIO (also called Distributed MinIO)	Data security	Storage servers running in a cluster

For more information about your options, see the official MinIO docs.

2. Install, run, and sign in to MinIO

1. Set up your preferred environment variables for MinIO.

   These examples use MINIO_DIR:

   $ export MINIO_DIR=$(pwd)/minio
   $ mkdir -p $MINIO_DIR

2. Install MinIO.

   $ docker pull minio/minio

   For more information, see the official "MinIO Quickstart Guide."

3. Sign in to MinIO using your MinIO access key and secret.

   $ export MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=$(cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9' | fold -w 32 | head -n 1)
   # this one is actually a secret, so careful
   $ export MINIO_SECRET_KEY=$(cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9' | fold -w 32 | head -n 1)

   $ export MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=$(cat /dev/urandom | LC_CTYPE=C tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9' | fold -w 32 | head -n 1)
   # this one is actually a secret, so careful
   $ export MINIO_SECRET_KEY=$(cat /dev/urandom | LC_CTYPE=C tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9' | fold -w 32 | head -n 1)

   You can access your MinIO keys using the environment variables:

   $ echo $MINIO_ACCESS_KEY
   $ echo $MINIO_SECRET_KEY

4. Run MinIO in your chosen mode.

   • Run MinIO using Docker on a single host:

     $ docker run -p 9000:9000 \
             -v $MINIO_DIR:/data \
             -e "MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=$MINIO_ACCESS_KEY" \
             -e "MINIO_SECRET_KEY=$MINIO_SECRET_KEY" \
             minio/minio server /data

     For more information, see "MinIO Docker Quickstart guide."

   • Run MinIO using Docker as a NAS gateway:

     This setup is useful for deployments where there is already a NAS you want to use as the backup storage for GitHub Packages.

     $ docker run -p 9000:9000 \
             -v $MINIO_DIR:/data \
             -e "MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=$MINIO_ACCESS_KEY" \
             -e "MINIO_SECRET_KEY=$MINIO_SECRET_KEY" \
             minio/minio gateway nas /data

   • Run MinIO using Docker as a cluster. This MinIO deployment uses several hosts and MinIO's erasure coding for the strongest data protection. To run MinIO in a cluster mode, see the "Distributed MinIO Quickstart Guide."

3. Create your MinIO bucket for GitHub Packages

1. Install the MinIO client.

   $ docker pull minio/mc

2. Create a bucket with a host URL that GitHub Enterprise Server can access.

   • Local deployments example:

     $ export MC_HOST_minio="http://${MINIO_ACCESS_KEY}:${MINIO_SECRET_KEY} @localhost:9000"
     $ docker run minio/mc BUCKET-NAME

     This example can be used for MinIO standalone or MinIO as a NAS gateway.

   • Clustered deployments example:

     $ export MC_HOST_minio="http://${MINIO_ACCESS_KEY}:${MINIO_SECRET_KEY} @minioclustername.example.com:9000"
     $ docker run minio/mc mb packages

Next steps

To finish configuring storage for GitHub Packages, you'll need to copy the MinIO storage URL:

echo "http://${MINIO_ACCESS_KEY}:${MINIO_SECRET_KEY}@minioclustername.example.com:9000"

For the next steps, see "Enabling GitHub Packages with MinIO."