How to use this image

All examples in this guide use the public image. If you've mirrored the repository for your own use (for example, to your Docker Hub namespace), update your commands to reference the mirrored image instead of the public one.

For example:

• Public image: dhi.io/<repository>:<tag>
• Mirrored image: <your-namespace>/dhi-<repository>:<tag>

For the examples, you must first use docker login dhi.io to authenticate to the registry to pull the images.

Extended lifecycle support

MinIO no longer publishes community AGPL releases. This image ships an extended lifecycle support (ELS) rebuild of the last community release, which continues to receive maintenance after upstream stopped. Pulling it requires an ELS entitlement on your Docker organization; without one, docker pull fails with an authorization error even after docker login dhi.io.

Image tags and the reported MinIO version

The image is tagged from the ELS package version, which encodes the upstream release it derives from as 0.<YYYYMMDD>.<HHMMSS> — for example 0.20251015.172955 for RELEASE.2025-10-15T17-29-55Z. The timestamp the binary reports is not that release: it is the datetime the ELS build itself was produced, so minio --version prints a later timestamp than the image tag, and that timestamp advances with every rebuild of the same upstream release:

$ docker run --rm dhi.io/minio:<tag> --version
minio version RELEASE.2026-04-29T13-53-29Z (commit-id=0c56c430f7e9ecb422ecafe21227af7c7e2f4b72)

Pin the image tag, not the string printed by minio --version.

Start a MinIO instance

To start a MinIO instance, run the following command. Replace <tag> with the image variant you want to run.

$ docker run -p 9000:9000 dhi.io/minio:<tag>

The image sets MINIO_VOLUMES=/data and defaults to minio server, so the command above serves the /data directory without any further arguments.

To start a MinIO instance with the web UI, publish a second port and pass --console-address:

$ docker run -p 9000:9000 -p 9001:9001 dhi.io/minio:<tag> server --console-address=":9001"

• Port 9000 - API endpoint (health checks work here)
• Port 9001 - Web UI

Then visit http://localhost:9001⁠ in your browser. Login with the default credentials minioadmin / minioadmin (or your custom credentials if set). Use the MINIO_ROOT_USER and MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD environment variables to set custom credentials (minimum 8 characters for password).

Common MinIO use cases

Start MinIO with custom credentials

Ensure that no containers are running on the required ports:

$ docker run -d --name minio-test -p 9000:9000 -p 9001:9001 \
    -e MINIO_ROOT_USER=myadmin \
    -e MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=mypassword123 \
    dhi.io/minio:<tag> \
    server /data --console-address ":9001"

# Test that MinIO is available
$ curl -f http://localhost:9000/minio/health/live

# Access the web UI at http://localhost:9001 with credentials: myadmin / mypassword123

# Cleanup
$ docker stop minio-test && docker rm minio-test

Run MinIO with persistence

Runtime variants run as the nonroot user (UID 65532), which owns /data inside the image. A named volume inherits that ownership on first use, so no extra permission setup is needed:

# Create volume
$ docker volume create minio-data

# Start MinIO with persistent volume
$ docker run -d --name minio-persist-test \
    -p 9000:9000 -p 9001:9001 \
    -e MINIO_ROOT_USER=myadmin \
    -e MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=mypassword123 \
    -v minio-data:/data \
    dhi.io/minio:<tag> \
    server /data --console-address ":9001"

# Configure the AWS CLI against the running server
$ export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=myadmin
$ export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=mypassword123

# Create a bucket and upload a file
$ aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:9000 s3 mb s3://test-bucket
$ echo "Test persistence data" > test-file.txt
$ aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:9000 s3 cp test-file.txt s3://test-bucket/
$ aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:9000 s3 ls s3://test-bucket/

# Recreate the container against the same volume
$ docker stop minio-persist-test && docker rm minio-persist-test
$ docker run -d --name minio-persist-test2 \
    -p 9000:9000 -p 9001:9001 \
    -e MINIO_ROOT_USER=myadmin \
    -e MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=mypassword123 \
    -v minio-data:/data \
    dhi.io/minio:<tag> \
    server /data --console-address ":9001"

# The object is still there
$ aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:9000 s3 ls s3://test-bucket/

# Cleanup
$ docker stop minio-persist-test2 && docker rm minio-persist-test2
$ docker volume rm minio-data

If you bind-mount a host directory instead of a named volume, make sure it is writable by UID 65532.

Ship configuration with a multi-stage Dockerfile

Use a -dev variant for stages that need a shell, and a runtime variant for the final stage.

# syntax=docker/dockerfile:1
FROM dhi.io/minio:<tag>-dev AS setup

WORKDIR /build

COPY config/ ./config/

RUN echo "MinIO version: $(minio --version | head -1)" >> ./config/build-info.txt && \
    ls -lh ./config/

FROM dhi.io/minio:<tag> AS runtime

COPY --from=setup /build/config/ /etc/minio/

EXPOSE 9000 9001

CMD ["server", "/data", "--console-address", ":9001"]

Build and run it:

$ docker build -t minio-production .

$ docker run -d \
  --name minio-server \
  -p 9000:9000 \
  -p 9001:9001 \
  -v minio-data:/data \
  -e MINIO_ROOT_USER=myadmin \
  -e MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=mypassword123 \
  minio-production

The runtime variant has no shell or coreutils, so inspect files copied into it with Docker Debug⁠ rather than docker exec:

$ docker debug minio-server -c "cat /etc/minio/build-info.txt"

Non-hardened images vs. Docker Hardened Images

The upstream minio/minio image runs as root through a /usr/bin/docker-entrypoint.sh wrapper, which optionally re-executes the server as another account based on MINIO_USERNAME, MINIO_GROUPNAME, MINIO_UID, and MINIO_GID. That wrapper is deprecated upstream and is not the entry point here.

If you relied on MINIO_USERNAME / MINIO_UID to change the server's account, pass --user to docker run (or set securityContext.runAsUser in Kubernetes) instead. Both API and web UI ports are unprivileged, so no additional changes are needed.

Image variants

Docker Hardened Images come in different variants depending on their intended use. Image variants are identified by their tag.

• Runtime variants are designed to run your application in production. These images are intended to be used either directly or as the FROM image in the final stage of a multi-stage build. These images typically:

  • Run as a nonroot user
  • Do not include a shell or a package manager
  • Contain only the minimal set of libraries needed to run the app

• Build-time variants typically include dev in the tag name and are intended for use in the first stage of a multi-stage Dockerfile. These images typically:

  • Run as the root user
  • Include a shell and package manager
  • Are used to build or compile applications

To view the image variants and get more information about them, select the Tags tab for this repository, and then select a tag.

Migrate to a Docker Hardened Image

To migrate your application to a Docker Hardened Image, you must update your Dockerfile. At minimum, you must update the base image in your existing Dockerfile to a Docker Hardened Image. This and a few other common changes are listed in the following table of migration notes.

The following steps outline the general migration process.

1. Find hardened images for your app.

   A hardened image may have several variants. Inspect the image tags and find the image variant that meets your needs.

2. Update the base image in your Dockerfile.

   Update the base image in your application's Dockerfile to the hardened image you found in the previous step. For framework images, this is typically going to be an image tagged as dev because it has the tools needed to install packages and dependencies.

3. For multi-stage Dockerfiles, update the runtime image in your Dockerfile.

   To ensure that your final image is as minimal as possible, you should use a multi-stage build. All stages in your Dockerfile should use a hardened image. While intermediary stages will typically use images tagged as dev, your final runtime stage should use a non-dev image variant.

4. Install additional packages

   Docker Hardened Images contain minimal packages in order to reduce the potential attack surface. You may need to install additional packages in your Dockerfile. Inspect the image variants to identify which packages are already installed.

   Only images tagged as dev typically have package managers. You should use a multi-stage Dockerfile to install the packages. Install the packages in the build stage that uses a dev image. Then, if needed, copy any necessary artifacts to the runtime stage that uses a non-dev image.

   For Alpine-based images, you can use apk to install packages. For Debian-based images, you can use apt-get to install packages.

Troubleshooting migration

The following are common issues that you may encounter during migration.

General debugging

The hardened images intended for runtime don't contain a shell nor any tools for debugging. The recommended method for debugging applications built with Docker Hardened Images is to use Docker Debug⁠ to attach to these containers. Docker Debug provides a shell, common debugging tools, and lets you install other tools in an ephemeral, writable layer that only exists during the debugging session.

Permissions

By default image variants intended for runtime, run as the nonroot user. Ensure that necessary files and directories are accessible to the nonroot user. You may need to copy files to different directories or change permissions so your application running as the nonroot user can access them.

Privileged ports

Non-dev hardened images run as a nonroot user by default. As a result, applications in these images can't bind to privileged ports (below 1024) when running in Kubernetes or in Docker Engine versions older than 20.10. To avoid issues, configure your application to listen on port 1025 or higher inside the container, even if you map it to a lower port on the host. For example, docker run -p 80:8080 my-image will work because the port inside the container is 8080, and docker run -p 80:81 my-image won't work because the port inside the container is 81.

No shell

By default, image variants intended for runtime don't contain a shell. Use dev images in build stages to run shell commands and then copy any necessary artifacts into the runtime stage. In addition, use Docker Debug to debug containers with no shell.

Entry point

Docker Hardened Images may have different entry points than images such as Docker Official Images. Use docker inspect to inspect entry points for Docker Hardened Images and update your Dockerfile if necessary.