Single Bucket Mode for MinIO/S3

Overview

By default, RAGFlow creates one bucket per Knowledge Base (dataset) and one bucket per user folder. This can be problematic when:

Your cloud provider charges per bucket
Your IAM policy restricts bucket creation
You want all data organized in a single bucket with directory structure

The Single Bucket Mode allows you to configure RAGFlow to use a single bucket with a directory structure instead of multiple buckets.

How It Works

Default Mode (Multiple Buckets)

bucket: kb_12345/
  └── document_1.pdf
bucket: kb_67890/
  └── document_2.pdf
bucket: folder_abc/
  └── file_3.txt

Single Bucket Mode (with prefix_path)

bucket: ragflow-bucket/
  └── ragflow/
      ├── kb_12345/
      │   └── document_1.pdf
      ├── kb_67890/
      │   └── document_2.pdf
      └── folder_abc/
          └── file_3.txt

Configuration

MinIO Configuration

Edit your service_conf.yaml or set environment variables:

minio:
  user: "your-access-key"
  password: "your-secret-key"
  host: "minio.example.com:443"
  bucket: "ragflow-bucket" # Default bucket name
  prefix_path: "ragflow" # Optional prefix path

Or using environment variables:

export MINIO_USER=your-access-key
export MINIO_PASSWORD=your-secret-key
export MINIO_HOST=minio.example.com:443
export MINIO_BUCKET=ragflow-bucket
export MINIO_PREFIX_PATH=ragflow

S3 Configuration (already supported)

s3:
  access_key: "your-access-key"
  secret_key: "your-secret-key"
  endpoint_url: "https://s3.amazonaws.com"
  bucket: "my-ragflow-bucket"
  prefix_path: "production"
  region: "us-east-1"

IAM Policy Example

When using single bucket mode, you only need permissions for one bucket:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": ["s3:*"],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::ragflow-bucket",
        "arn:aws:s3:::ragflow-bucket/*"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Migration from Multi-Bucket to Single Bucket

If you're migrating from multi-bucket mode to single-bucket mode:

Set environment variables for the new configuration
Restart RAGFlow services
Migrate existing data (optional):

# Example using mc (MinIO Client)
mc alias set old-minio http://old-minio:9000 ACCESS_KEY SECRET_KEY
mc alias set new-minio https://new-minio:443 ACCESS_KEY SECRET_KEY

# List all knowledge base buckets
mc ls old-minio/ | grep kb_ | while read -r line; do
    bucket=$(echo $line | awk '{print $5}')
    # Copy each bucket to the new structure
    mc cp --recursive old-minio/$bucket/ new-minio/ragflow-bucket/ragflow/$bucket/
done

Toggle Between Modes

Enable Single Bucket Mode

minio:
  bucket: "my-single-bucket"
  prefix_path: "ragflow"

Disable (Use Multi-Bucket Mode)

minio:
  # Leave bucket and prefix_path empty or commented out
  # bucket: ''
  # prefix_path: ''

Troubleshooting

Issue: Access Denied errors

Solution: Ensure your IAM policy grants access to the bucket specified in the configuration.

Issue: Files not found after switching modes

Solution: The path structure changes between modes. You'll need to migrate existing data.

Issue: Connection fails with HTTPS

Solution: Ensure secure: True is set in the MinIO connection (automatically handled for port 443).

Storage Backends Supported

✅ MinIO - Full support with single bucket mode
✅ AWS S3 - Full support with single bucket mode
✅ Alibaba OSS - Full support with single bucket mode
✅ Azure Blob - Uses container-based structure (different paradigm)
⚠️ OpenDAL - Depends on underlying storage backend

Performance Considerations

Single bucket mode may have slightly better performance for bucket listing operations
Multi-bucket mode provides better isolation and organization for large deployments
Choose based on your specific requirements and infrastructure constraints