README.md

Table of Contents

• Executables
• Installing from GitHub
• Installing from source
  • CLI
  • aisloader
  • xmeta
  • ishard
• aisinit

Executables

Directory	Binary name	Description	README
cmd/cli	ais	AIS command line management utility	CLI
cmd/aisloader	aisloader	AIS integrated load generator	aisloader
bench/tools/aisloader-composer	aisloader-composer	Scripts and ansible playbooks to benchmark an AIS cluster using multiple hosts running aisloader, controlled by ansible	aisloader-composer
cmd/aisnode	aisnode	AIS node (gateway or target) binary
cmd/aisnodeprofile	aisnode	... with profiling enabled
cmd/aisinit	aisinit	Kubernetes init container: generates aisnode config from pod environment (DNS, hostnames, networking mode, external LB)
cmd/authn	authn	Standalone server providing token-based secure access to AIS clusters	AuthN
cmd/xmeta	xmeta	Utility to inspect, extract, format, and (in limited cases) edit internal AIS metadata structures (cluster map, bucket metadata, etc.)	xmeta
cmd/ishard	ishard	Utility to create well-formed shards from an original dataset	ishard

NOTE: installed CLI executable is named ais.

Installing from GitHub

Generally, AIStore (cluster) requires at least some sort of deployment process or sequence.

Standalone binaries, on the other hand, can be built from source or installed directly from the latest or previous GitHub releases.

Each release includes ais (CLI) and aisloader binaries for linux-amd64 and darwin-arm64:

$ ./scripts/install_from_binaries.sh --help
NAME:
  install_from_binaries.sh - install 'ais' (CLI) and 'aisloader' from release binaries

USAGE:
  ./install_from_binaries.sh [options...]

OPTIONS:
  --tmpdir <dir>        work directory, e.g. /root/tmp
  --dstdir <dir>        installation destination
  --release             release tag, e.g. v1.4.1, v1.4.3, latest (default: latest)
  --completions         install and enable _only_ CLI autocompletions (ie., skip installing binaries)
  -h, --help            show this help

NOTE: For CLI, the script will also enable auto-completions. CLI can be used without (bash, zsh) auto-completions but, generally, using auto-completions is strongly recommended.

Example: download 'ais' and 'aisloader' binaries from the latest release

$ ./scripts/install_from_binaries.sh --dstdir /tmp/qqq

Note: AIS container images (aisnode, aisinit, authn, etc.) are not distributed via the GitHub release page or this install script. They are published separately and are also available with native arm64 support. See Kubernetes deployment for details.

Installing from source

CLI

The preferable way is to use Makefile:

$ make cli

builds AIS CLI from the local aistore repository and installs it in your $GOPATH/bin.

NOTE: installed CLI binary is named ais.

Alternatively, you could also use go install:

$ go install github.com/NVIDIA/aistore/cmd/cli@latest && mv $GOPATH/bin/cli $GOPATH/bin/ais

To install CLI auto-completions, you could also, and separately, use cmd/cli/install_autocompletions.sh

aisloader

Makefile way:

$ make aisloader

But again, you could also use go install:

$ go install github.com/NVIDIA/aistore/cmd/aisloader@latest

xmeta

xmeta is a utility to inspect, extract, format, and (in limited cases) edit internal AIS metadata structures - see usage.

For command line options and usage examples, simply run xmeta with no arguments:

$ xmeta
Usage of xmeta:
  -f string ...
...
Examples:
        # Smap:
        xmeta -x -in=~/.ais0/.ais.smap      - extract Smap to STDOUT
...

To install, run:

$ make xmeta

OR, same:

$ cd cmd/xmeta
$ go install

ishard

ishard is a utility to create well-formed shards from an original dataset - see usage.

To install, run:

$ make ishard

Or use go install:

$ go install github.com/NVIDIA/aistore/cmd/ishard@latest

aisinit

aisinit is a Kubernetes init container that runs before aisnode in the same pod. It takes a template local configuration and produces the final node config based on the pod's runtime environment.

Specifically, aisinit:

• resolves pod DNS names for intra-cluster (data and control) networks
• sets the public hostname based on the configured DNS mode (IP, Node, or Pod)
• fetches external LoadBalancer IPs for targets when external access is enabled
• applies optional hostname mappings and cluster config overrides

The DNS mode (AIS_PUBLIC_DNS_MODE) controls how the public-facing hostname is determined:

Mode	Hostname source	Typical use case
IP (default)	Host IP (discovered at runtime)	Simple deployments; requires IP SANs in TLS certs
Node	Kubernetes node name (spec.nodeName)	Environments where node names are resolvable (e.g., AWS EC2 private DNS)
Pod	Pod DNS (pod.service.namespace.svc.cluster.local)	Host networking + TLS with wildcard certs

aisinit is not installed as a standalone binary. It is built into the aisinit container image and deployed via the AIS Kubernetes operator.