Ring files are a kind of catalog of the files that are stored within the Swift storage engine and where within the storage cluster they are stored. As content is written to the Swift object storage cluster, these ring files are updated across the storage cluster and on the proxy server. When alternative storage backends are used in place of the Swift object storage engine, they mock the ring file system that the proxy expects and map this ring file system to its storage engine. Because the Swift proxy service always expects a set of ring files to operate, it is important to know how these are generated and installed. Learning how to set up ring files for the Swift object storage engine will teach you the basics that will translate into object storage backed by alternative storage engines.

There are various ring files that must all be generated and copied to each of the servers that will use the ring files. These include the account, container, and object rings. To generate these...