MinIO Client Settings

This page covers settings for the MinIO Client.

You can establish or modify settings by defining:

  • an environment variable on the host system prior to starting or restarting the MinIO Server. Refer to your operating system’s documentation for how to define an environment variable.
  • a configuration setting using mc admin config set.

If you define both an environment variable and the similar configuration setting, MinIO uses the environment variable value.

Some settings have only an environment variable or a configuration setting, but not both.

Settings

Host Credentials

Use this setting to add a temporary alias to use for mc commands. For example, for use with scripting.

The temporary alias uses the AWS s3v4 signature.

MC_HOST_<ALIAS>

envvar

Replace <ALIAS> at the end of the environment variable with the alias to set the host for.

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

Use mc alias set to configure an alias.

Examples

Static Credentials

export MC_HOST_<alias>=https://<Access Key>:<Secret Key>@<YOUR-S3-ENDPOINT>

export MC_HOST_myalias=https://Q3AM3UQ867SPQQA43P2F:[email protected]

Security Token Service (STS) Credentials

export MC_HOST_<alias>=https://<Access Key>:<Secret Key>:<Session Token>@<YOUR-S3-ENDPOINT>

export MC_HOST_myalias=https://Q3AM3UQ867SPQQA43P2F:zuf+tfteSlswRu7BJ86wekitnifILbZam1KYY3TG:eyJhbGciOiJIUzUxMiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJhY2Nlc3NLZXkiOiJOVUlCT1JaWVRWMkhHMkJNUlNYUiIsImF1ZCI6IlBvRWdYUDZ1Vk80NUlzRU5SbmdEWGo1QXU1WWEiLCJhenAiOiJQb0VnWFA2dVZPNDVJc0VOUm5nRFhqNUF1NVlhIiwiZXhwIjoxNTM0ODk2NjI5LCJpYXQiOjE1MzQ4OTMwMjksImlzcyI6Imh0dHBzOi8vbG9jYWxob3N0Ojk0NDMvb2F1dGgyL3Rva2VuIiwianRpIjoiNjY2OTZjZTctN2U1Ny00ZjU5LWI0MWQtM2E1YTMzZGZiNjA4In0.eJONnVaSVHypiXKEARSMnSKgr-2mlC2Sr4fEGJitLcJF_at3LeNdTHv0_oHsv6ZZA3zueVGgFlVXMlREgr9LXA@play.min.io

STS Service

Use this setting to add an STS endpoint to use for mc commands.

Supports adding multiple environment variables by alias.

MC_STS_ENDPOINT_<alias>

envvar

export MC_STS_ENDPOINT_myalias=https://sts.minio-operator.svc.cluster.local:4223/sts/ns-1

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

Web Token Identity

Use this setting to add a web token identity to use for mc commands.

Supports adding multiple environment variables by alias.

MC_WEB_IDENTITY_TOKEN_<alias>

envvar

export MC_WEB_IDENTITY_TOKEN_FILE_myalias=/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

Configuration Directory

Specify the path to the configuration folder the MinIO Client should use.

MC_CONFIG_DIR

envvar

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

Progress Bar

Disable the MinIO Client progress bar.

MC_QUIET

envvar

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

Pager

Disable the pager functionality of the MinIO Client in the CLI. When used, output prints to raw STDOUT instead.

MC_DISABLE_PAGER

envvar

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

Color Theme

Disable the color theme used for MinIO Client output.

MC_NO_COLOR

envvar

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

JSON

Enable formatting the output as JSON lines.

MC_JSON

envvar

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

Debug

Enable the debug output.

MC_DEBUG

envvar

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

Disable SSL

Disable SSL certificate verification.

MC_INSECURE

envvar

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

Limit Download Bandwidth

Limit the download bandwidth the MinIO Client uses for certain commands.

MC_LIMIT_DOWNLOAD

envvar

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

If not specified, the MinIO Client uses all available bandwidth.

Limit client-side download rates to no more than the specified rate in KiB/s, MiB/s, or GiB/s. This affects only the download from the local device running the MinIO Client. Valid units include:

  • B for bytes
  • K for kilobytes
  • M for megabytes
  • G for gigabytes
  • Ki for kibibytes
  • Mi for mibibytes
  • Gi for gibibytes

For example, to limit download rates to no more than 1 GiB/s, use the following on a Linux system:

export MC_LIMIT_DOWNLOAD=1G

Refer to your operating system instructions for equivalent commands on non-Linux systems.

Limit Upload Bandwidth

Limit the upload bandwidth the MinIO Client uses for certain commands.

MC_LIMIT_UPLOAD

envvar

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

If not specified, the MinIO Client uses all available bandwidth.

Limit client-side upload rates to no more than the specified rate in KiB/s, MiB/s, or GiB/s. This affects only the upload from the local device running the MinIO Client. Valid units include:

  • B for bytes
  • K for kilobytes
  • M for megabytes
  • G for gigabytes
  • Ki for kibibytes
  • Mi for mibibytes
  • Gi for gibibytes

For example, to limit upload rates to no more than 1 GiB/s, use the following on a Linux system:

export MC_LIMIT_UPLOAD=1G

Refer to your operating system instructions for equivalent commands on non-Linux systems.

SSE-KMS Encryption

Encrypt and decrypt options using SSE-KMS with server managed keys.

MC_ENC_KMS

envvar

Specify the key with the MC_ENC_KMS environment variable.

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

SSE-S3 Encryption

Encrypt and decrypt options using SSE-KMS with server managed keys.

MC_ENC_S3

envvar

Specify the key to use for performing SSE-S3 encryption. The specified value must match the encryption key set in MINIO_KMS_KES_KEY_NAME.

This setting does not have a configuration setting option.

Last modified August 2, 2026: init commit (8338d5b)

Portions of this page are adapted from the MinIO Object Storage Documentation, © 2020–Present MinIO, Inc., licensed under CC BY 4.0, converted and maintained by the Silo project. Attribution