Setting Up MinIO Object Storage on a

What we are configuring and why

We will be configuring MinIO — a high-performance, distributed object storage server written in Go. It is designed to provide an S3-compatible API, making it an ideal replacement or complement to cloud services such as Amazon S3, DigitalOcean Spaces, or Google Cloud Storage. MinIO allows you to deploy your own object storage on any hardware, from a single server to a cluster of dozens of nodes, while ensuring high availability and scalability.

What will the reader get in the end? You will gain full control over your data, independence from third-party providers, and the ability to use the familiar S3 API for your applications. This is especially valuable for developers who need to store large volumes of unstructured data (images, videos, documents, logs, backups) and integrate them with their services, whether they are web applications, microservices, or analytical platforms. MinIO is excellent for creating a private cloud for data storage, hosting static websites, storing media files for a CDN, or even as a backend for CI/CD pipelines.

What alternatives are there and why self-hosted on a VPS? There are many cloud solutions for object storage on the market, such as Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces, Backblaze B2. These services offer high reliability, scalability, and often have a low entry cost. However, they also have their drawbacks: dependence on a single provider, potential data privacy issues (especially for sensitive information), unpredictable costs for large volumes of traffic and storage, and the inability to fully control the infrastructure.

Deploying MinIO on your own VPS or dedicated server gives you:

• Full control: You manage data, security, and configuration.
• Predictable costs: You pay a fixed price for the server, regardless of the volume of stored data or traffic (within server limits).
• Data privacy: Your data remains on your server, under your control.
• Performance: Ability to optimize MinIO for your specific tasks and utilize server resources most efficiently.
• Flexibility: Ability to integrate with local services without delays and additional costs for outbound traffic.

What VPS config is needed for this task

Choosing the right VPS configuration for MinIO depends on the anticipated load, the volume of stored data, and performance requirements. MinIO efficiently uses available resources, but object storage, especially under intensive operation, can be demanding on certain parameters.

Minimum requirements:

• Processor (CPU): 1-2 cores. MinIO is not heavily CPU-intensive for basic operations, but multi-threaded requests benefit from more cores. For small loads, 1 core is sufficient; for more active use, 2 cores.
• Random Access Memory (RAM): 2 GB. MinIO uses RAM for metadata caching and data buffering. 2 GB is a comfortable minimum for stable operation. If a very large number of small objects or high concurrent load is planned, 4 GB would be preferable.
• Disk: The most critical component.
  • Type: For object storage, disk performance is extremely important. NVMe SSD or high-performance SATA SSDs are mandatory for good read/write speeds. HDDs are only suitable for archival storage with low access frequency.
  • Volume: Minimum 50 GB for the system and initial data. The actual volume depends on your needs. Make sure you have enough space for growth.
  • Fault tolerance: If you are using a single disk, consider regular backups. For multi-disk configurations, MinIO supports erasure coding, but on a single VPS, this is usually not relevant unless you are using block storage provided by the provider.
• Network: 1 Gbit/s. Good network bandwidth is important as MinIO will actively transfer data. For most VPS, 1 Gbit/s is standard. Make sure your provider does not have hidden restrictions or excessive costs for outbound traffic.

Specific VPS plan for the task:

To run MinIO for a development team, a small SaaS project, or personal backups, the following configuration is recommended:

• CPU: 2 cores
• RAM: 4 GB
• Disk: 200-500 GB NVMe SSD (or more, depending on needs)
• Network: 1 Gbit/s, unlimited or generous traffic limit.

You can get a VPS with the specified characteristics or a similar plan from another provider offering NVMe SSD and sufficient memory.

When a dedicated server is needed, not a VPS:

A dedicated server becomes necessary when:

• Extreme I/O performance is required: For very large data volumes, high access frequency, or specific workloads where VPS disk subsystem performance can become a bottleneck due to shared resource usage.
• Large storage volumes are needed: If you require several terabytes or petabytes of data, a dedicated server with multiple disks (e.g., in a RAID array) will be a more economical and performant solution.
• High availability and fault tolerance: For MinIO cluster deployments with erasure coding, requiring multiple physical nodes to distribute data and ensure fault tolerance at the disk and server level.
• Specific security or compliance requirements: Some regulations may require physical isolation of equipment.

Location: what it affects

The choice of MinIO server location is important for several reasons:

• Latency: The closer the server is to your target audience or to the application servers that will use MinIO, the lower the data access latency will be. This is critical for interactive applications.
• Legislation: The server's location can affect applicable data protection laws (e.g., GDPR in Europe).
• Traffic cost: Some providers may have different rates for outbound traffic depending on the region.

Choose a location that is geographically closest to the primary consumers of MinIO data.

Server Preparation

Before installing MinIO, you need to perform basic operating system setup. It is assumed that you are using a fresh installation of Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS.

1. SSH Connection and System Update

First, connect to your VPS via SSH using the credentials provided by your provider. This is usually the root user or a standard user with sudo privileges.

ssh user@your_vps_ip_address

Then, update the package list and installed packages to their latest versions:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

This will ensure you have all the latest security patches and the newest versions of system utilities.

2. Creating a New User with Sudo Privileges (if not using root)

Working as the root user is not recommended for daily tasks. Create a new user and grant them sudo privileges.

sudo adduser minioadmin
sudo usermod -aG sudo minioadmin

Now you can exit the current session and log in as the new user:

exit
ssh minioadmin@your_vps_ip_address

3. Configuring SSH Keys for Secure Access

Using SSH keys is much more secure than passwords. If you haven't generated keys yet, do so on your local machine:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096

Then, copy your public key to your VPS (replace minioadmin and your_vps_ip_address):

ssh-copy-id minioadmin@your_vps_ip_address

After successfully copying the key, it is recommended to disable password authentication for root and your new user to enhance security. Edit the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Find and change the following lines:

# Disable root login with password
PermitRootLogin prohibit-password
# Disable password authentication for all
PasswordAuthentication no

Save the changes (Ctrl+O, Enter, Ctrl+X) and restart the SSH service:

sudo systemctl restart sshd

Important: Make sure you can log in via SSH with your key before disabling password authentication! Otherwise, you will lose access to the server.

4. Firewall Configuration (UFW)

A firewall is necessary to restrict access to your server to only the required ports. Ubuntu uses UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall).

sudo apt install ufw -y # Install UFW if it's not present
sudo ufw allow OpenSSH # Allow SSH (port 22)
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp # Allow HTTP (for Caddy)
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp # Allow HTTPS (for Caddy)
sudo ufw enable # Enable the firewall
sudo ufw status # Check status

At this stage, MinIO is not yet installed, so we are not opening its port (default 9000) yet.

5. Installing Fail2ban

Fail2ban helps protect the server from brute-force attacks by blocking IP addresses that make too many failed login attempts.

sudo apt install fail2ban -y
sudo systemctl enable fail2ban
sudo systemctl start fail2ban

Fail2ban is configured by default to protect SSH. You can check its status:

sudo fail2ban-client status
sudo fail2ban-client status sshd

Now your server is ready for the installation of MinIO and related software.

Software Installation — Step-by-Step

In this step, we will install MinIO and Caddy, which will be used to provide HTTPS access to MinIO.

1. Installing MinIO Server

We will install MinIO by downloading the official binary and configuring it as a system service. For relevance in 2026, we will use the latest stable versions.

1.1. Creating User and Groups for MinIO

To enhance security, MinIO will run under its own unprivileged user.

sudo groupadd -r minio-user # Create group for MinIO
sudo useradd -r -s /sbin/nologin -g minio-user minio-user # Create user without shell

1.2. Creating Directories for MinIO

We will create directories for storing the MinIO binary, data, and configuration.

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
sudo mkdir -p /etc/minio
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/minio

1.3. Downloading the MinIO Binary

Let's download the latest stable version of MinIO. Up-to-date versions can always be found on the official MinIO website or GitHub. As of 2026, let's assume the current MinIO version has the format RELEASE.2026-XX-XXTXX-XX-XXZ. We will use mc (MinIO Client) to manage MinIO.

# Download MinIO Server
wget -O /usr/local/bin/minio https://dl.min.io/server/minio/release/linux-amd64/minio # Download MinIO binary
# Download MinIO Client (mc)
wget -O /usr/local/bin/mc https://dl.min.io/client/mc/release/linux-amd64/mc # Download MinIO Client binary

1.4. Granting Execution Permissions

Make the downloaded files executable.

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/minio # Make MinIO executable
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/mc # Make MinIO Client executable

1.5. Configuring Data Directory Permissions

Set the owner of the MinIO data directory to the created user minio-user.

sudo chown minio-user:minio-user /var/lib/minio # Change owner of data directory

2. Installing Caddy Web Server

Caddy will be used as a reverse proxy for MinIO and will automatically manage Let's Encrypt SSL certificates. This significantly simplifies HTTPS configuration.

2.1. Adding the Caddy Repository

To get the latest stable version of Caddy, we will add its official repository.

sudo apt install -y debian-keyring debian-archive-keyring apt-transport-https # Install necessary packages
curl -1s https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/caddy-stable-archive-keyring.gpg # Add GPG key
curl -1s https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/debian.deb.txt | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/caddy-stable.list # Add repository

2.2. Installing Caddy

Update the package list and install Caddy.

sudo apt update # Update package list
sudo apt install caddy -y # Install Caddy

Caddy will be installed as a system service and automatically started. You can check its status:

sudo systemctl status caddy

3. Opening MinIO Port in Firewall (UFW)

Now that MinIO will be running, we need to open the port it will listen on (default 9000). Caddy will proxy requests to this port.

sudo ufw allow 9000/tcp # Allow access to MinIO port
sudo ufw status # Check UFW status

At this stage, all necessary software has been installed. Let's proceed to configuration.