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Metadata server

Metadata server aims to provide metadata management for your libraries, so as to better understand the relevant information of your libraries.

Deployment

Prerequisites

The startup of Metadata server requires the use of Redis service, but Seafile server uses Memcached as the cache server by default, so you must deploy Redis for Seafile before using Metadata server, or use an external Redis service.

Download YML file

Please download YML file **in your `seafile-server.yml` directory** by following command:

```sh
wget https://manual.seafile.com/12.0/repo/docker/md-server.yml
```

Modify .env according

Normally, you don't need to set additional variables in .env for metadata server, because the default settings and necessary environment variables will be consistent with Seafile server (e.g., JWT_PRIVATE_KEY), and the metadata of libraries will be stored locally (default is /opt/md-data). By the way, you can also add or modify relevant environment variables in .env according to the information in the following table:

Faster configuration

Metadata-server docker we use an one-time configuration file, which will be generated directly through the environment variable, eliminating the need for you to repeatedly write configuration files (i.e., no md-server.conf), which will significantly improve your deployment efficiency.

Variables Description Required
MD_STORAGE_TYPE The type of backend storage. Options: file (local storage), s3, oss. Optional, default file
MD_DATA Directory where local data (only valid in MD_STORAGE_TYPE=file) and cache are located. Optional, default /opt/md-data
MD_MAX_CACHE_SIZE The maximum cache size. Optional, default 1GB
MD_S3_HOST Host of s3 backend. Optional
MD_S3_AWS_REGION Region of AWS s3 backend. Optional
MD_S3_USE_HTTPS Use https connecting to S3 backend. Optional, default true
MD_S3_BUCKET Name of S3 bucket for storaging metadata. Required
MD_S3_PATH_STYLE_REQUEST S3 backend use path style request. Optional, default false
MD_S3_KEY_ID S3 backend authorization key ID. Required
MD_S3_KEY S3 backend authorization key secret. Required
MD_S3_USE_V4_SIGNATURE Use V4 signature to S3 storage backend. Optional, default true
MD_S3_SSE_C_KEY S3 SSE-C key. Optional
MD_OSS_HOST OSS backend host. Optional
MD_OSS_REGION OSS backend region. Optional
MD_OSS_BUCKET Name of OSS bucket for storaging metadata. Required
MD_OSS_KEY_ID OSS backend authorization key ID. Required
MD_OSS_KEY OSS backend authorization key secret. Required
REDIS_HOST Your Redis service host. Optional, default redis
REDIS_PORT Your Redis service port. Optional, default 6379
REDIS_PASSWORD Your Redis access password. Optional

More descriptions about Optional and Required in above table

  • In the table above, although many items are marked as Required, some of them are only required when the storage backend specified by MD_STORAGE_TYPE is used:

    • MD_S3_xxx only valid in MD_STORAGE_TYPE=s3
    • MD_OSS_xxx only valid in MD_STORAGE_TYPE=oss

  • If MD_STORAGE_TYPE is s3 or oss, although MD_xxx_HOST and MD_xxx_REGION are marked as Optional, when you use one of these two storage backends, you must specify at least one of MD_xxx_HOST and MD_xxx_REGION, otherwise the service will fail to start.

Start service

You can use following command to start metadata server:

docker compose up -d

Success

If the container startups normally, the follow message you can get from docker logs -f metadata-server: 

[md-server] [2025-01-24 06:23:44] [INFO] Environment variable validity checked
[md-server] [2025-01-24 06:23:44] [INFO] Database initialization completed
[md-server] [2025-01-24 06:23:44] [INFO] Configuration file generated
[md-server] [2025-01-24 06:45:17] [INFO] starting seaf-md-server

About listening port of Metadata server

By default, the Metadata server listens on port 8084. You can modify it by specifying MD_PORT in .env. At the same time, due to security reasons, this port is not open to the external network. If you need to open this port, you need to modify md-server.yml to uncomment the following:

services:
  metadata-server:
    ...
    ports:
      - ${MD_PORT:-8084}:${MD_PORT:-8084}
    ...