S3 Overlay Proxy

The S3 overlay proxy is a standalone package that provides transparent caching of S3 objects from a remote bucket into a local MinIO instance. Built with Litestar, it sits in front of the local MinIO process and mirrors objects on demand from a remote S3 bucket.

All local reads and writes still target MinIO; a cache miss transparently downloads the object from the upstream bucket, stores it in MinIO, and returns the payload to the caller.

Features

• Transparent caching: GET/HEAD requests automatically fetch missing objects from remote S3
• Local-first: All writes go directly to local MinIO
• Auto-bucket creation: Buckets are created automatically when objects are mirrored
• Range request support: Partial content requests are properly proxied
• Partial Caching: Large files are cached in chunks to avoid downloading the entire object when only a range is requested
• Zero-config local mode: Works without remote configuration for local-only development

Installation

uv add s3-overlay

Or add to your pyproject.toml:

dependencies = [
  "s3-overlay",
]

Docker

docker run -p 8000:8000 ghcr.io/elohmeier/s3-overlay:latest

Pass configuration via environment variables (-e), for example:

docker run -p 8000:8000 \
  -e S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_ENDPOINT=https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com \
  -e S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_REGION=eu-central-1 \
  -e S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIA... \
  -e S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=secret... \
  -e S3_OVERLAY_BUCKET_MAPPING=local-bucket:remote-bucket \
  ghcr.io/elohmeier/s3-overlay:latest

Usage

Running the Proxy

The proxy is served with Granian in factory mode:

uv run litestar --app s3_overlay.app:create_app run --host 0.0.0.0

How It Works

• Writes (PUT, multipart uploads, deletes) are handled only by MinIO
• Reads (GET, HEAD) hit MinIO first and fall back to the remote source if the object is missing locally
• When caching is enabled (S3_OVERLAY_CACHE_ENABLED=true), objects fetched from the remote source are written into MinIO so subsequent requests stay local
• When caching is disabled (default), objects are streamed directly from the remote source without storing them locally

Configuration

Configure the proxy using environment variables:

Local MinIO (Required)

Remote S3 (Optional)

Set the following variables to enable remote backfilling. Leave unset to operate in local-only mode.

Example with AWS S3:

environment:
  - S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_ENDPOINT=https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com
  - S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_REGION=eu-central-1
  - S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_ADDRESSING_STYLE=path
  - S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIA...
  - S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=secret...
  - S3_OVERLAY_BUCKET_MAPPING=local-bucket:remote-bucket

Example with Hetzner Cloud Object Storage:

environment:
  - S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_ENDPOINT=https://fsn1.your-objectstorage.com
  - S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_REGION=us-east-1
  - S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_ADDRESSING_STYLE=virtual # Uses bucket.endpoint.com format
  - S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_ACCESS_KEY_ID=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
  - S3_OVERLAY_REMOTE_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=YOUR_SECRET_KEY
  - S3_OVERLAY_BUCKET_MAPPING=local-bucket:remote-bucket

With virtual host style, the proxy will access remote objects at: https://remote-bucket.fsn1.your-objectstorage.com/organizations/...

Buckets are created automatically in MinIO when the proxy mirrors an object. Override S3_OVERLAY_DEFAULT_BUCKET_LOCATION if the MinIO cluster expects a non-us-east-1 location constraint.

Development

Running Tests

Tests use pytest-databases to spin up real MinIO containers:

uv run pytest tests/ -v

Tests verify:

• Object caching from remote to local
• HEAD request handling
• Local cache hits without remote access
• 404 handling for missing objects
• Bucket auto-creation

Architecture

The package is structured as follows:

s3-overlay/
├── s3_overlay/
│   ├── __init__.py      # Public API exports
│   ├── proxy.py         # S3OverlayProxy, LocalSettings, RemoteSettings
│   └── app.py           # Litestar ASGI application factory
├── tests/
│   ├── conftest.py      # Pytest fixtures for MinIO
│   ├── test_proxy.py    # Unit tests
│   └── test_integration.py  # Integration tests with test.txt
├── pyproject.toml
└── README.md

Key Components

• S3OverlayProxy: Core proxy logic with boto3 clients for local and remote S3
• LocalSettings/RemoteSettings: Configuration models loaded from environment
• create_app(): Litestar application factory for ASGI servers

License

MIT. See LICENSE.