RustFS Multiple Node Multiple Disk Installation

Multiple Node Multiple Disk (MNMD) mode is the deployment mode for production workloads, providing enterprise-grade performance, security, and scalability. A minimum of 4 servers is required, each with at least 1 disk, to safely start a distributed object storage cluster.

Topology and Planning

In the following architecture, requests are distributed to the servers through load balancing. With the default 12 + 4 erasure coding layout, each object is split into 12 data shards and 4 parity shards stored on different disks across different servers:

• Any single server failure or maintenance does not affect data security.
• Corruption of up to 4 disks does not affect data security.

Before installation, review the Pre-Installation Checklists and ensure all items meet production guidance.

Hostnames

Creating a RustFS cluster requires identical, sequential hostnames. There are two ways to achieve sequential hostnames:

1. DNS Configuration:

Configure your DNS resolution server to ensure name continuity.

2. HOSTS Configuration:

Modify the local alias settings in /etc/hosts as follows:

vim /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain localhost4 localhost4.localdomain4
::1 localhost localhost.localdomain localhost6 localhost6.localdomain6
192.168.1.1 node1
192.168.1.2 node2
192.168.1.3 node3
192.168.1.4 node4

Prerequisites and Service Setup

On every node, complete the common prerequisites and service setup — operating system, firewall, time synchronization, disk formatting, service user, binary download, and systemd unit — then continue below. Remember that all nodes must use the same listening port and must have synchronized clocks.

Configure Environment Variables

1. Create the same configuration file on every node. RUSTFS_VOLUMES uses brace expansion to enumerate all nodes and all disk mount points (this example: 4 nodes × 4 disks):

# Use a unique access key and a strong, random secret (e.g. openssl rand -base64 24)
RUSTFS_ACCESS_KEY=<your-access-key>
RUSTFS_SECRET_KEY=<your-secret-key>
RUSTFS_VOLUMES="http://node{1...4}:9000/data/rustfs{0...3}"
RUSTFS_ADDRESS=":9000"
RUSTFS_CONSOLE_ENABLE=true
RUST_LOG=error
RUSTFS_OBS_LOG_DIRECTORY="/var/logs/rustfs/"

2. Create the storage and log directories on every node:

sudo mkdir -p /data/rustfs{0..3} /var/logs/rustfs /opt/tls
sudo chmod -R 750 /data/rustfs* /var/logs/rustfs

Start Service and Verification

1. Start the service on every node and enable auto-start on boot:

sudo systemctl enable --now rustfs

2. Verify the service status:

systemctl status rustfs

3. Check the service port:

netstat -ntpl

4. View log files:

tail -f /var/logs/rustfs/rustfs*.log

5. Access the console: enter any node's IP address (or the load balancer address) and the console port (default 9001) in a browser. You should see:

Next Steps

• Put a load balancer in front of the cluster — see the Nginx integration guide.
• Enable TLS for production traffic — see TLS configuration.
• Review Pool Expansion before scaling.