This document explains the design approach of server side bucket replication. If you're looking to get started with replication, we suggest you go through the [Bucket replication guide](https://github.com/minio/minio/blob/master/docs/bucket/replication/README.md) first.

## Overview

# Distributed Server Design Guide [![Slack](https://slack.min.io/slack?type=svg)](https://slack.min.io)

This document explains the design, architecture and advanced use cases of the MinIO distributed server.

## Command-line

```
NAME:
  minio server - start object storage server

USAGE:
  minio server [FLAGS] DIR1 [DIR2..]
  minio server [FLAGS] DIR{1...64}
  minio server [FLAGS] DIR{1...64} DIR{65...128}

DIR:

only the object metadata on MinIO.

The data on the backend is stored under the `bucket/prefix` specified in the tier configuration with a custom name derived from a randomly generated uuid - e.g. `0b/c4/0bc4fab7-2daf-4d2f-8e39-5c6c6fb7e2d3`. The first two prefixes are characters 1-2,3-4 from the uuid. This format allows tiering to any cloud irrespective of whether the cloud in question supports versioning. The reference to the transitioned object name and transitioned tier is stored as part...

# Bucket Versioning Design Guide [![Slack](https://slack.min.io/slack?type=svg)](https://slack.min.io) [![Docker Pulls](https://img.shields.io/docker/pulls/minio/minio.svg?maxAge=604800)](https://hub.docker.com/r/minio/minio/)

## Description of `xl.meta`

`xl.meta` is a new self describing backend format used by MinIO to support AWS S3 compatible versioning.
This file is the source of truth for each `version` at rest. `xl.meta` is a msgpack file serialized from a