Use Swift to manage large files

If you want to upload large files but don't want to incorporate our
code into an application, you might find it easier to use the Swift® tool for
your uploads and management.

Note: If you prefer to use the API to manage large files, see Use the API to manage large files,
and if you prefer Swiftly, see Use Swiftly to upload an image.

This article describes the upload process if you are using the tool.

The following command uploads large_file to test_container in 10
MB segments and then creates the manifest file so the system can download
the segments as one:

swift upload test_container -S 10485760 large_file

You can change the size of the segments are by changing the value
following the -S option.

The following command downloads the large file as a single object:

swift download test_container large_file

In the above example, Swift® uploads all the segments into a second
container named test_container_segments. These segments will have
names using the format of
///. For example:

large_file/1290206778.25/21474836480/00000000
large_file/1290206778.25/21474836480/00000001

The main benefit for using a separate container is so the main container
isn't polluted with all the segment names. The naming format is so

that an upload of a new file with the same name won't overwrite the
contents of the first until the end when the process updates the manifest file.

For more information on using the Swift tool, see the OpenStack Swift documentation.

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