rustfs/docs/architecture/erasure-coding.md

Erasure Coding — Normative Algorithm & On-Disk Compatibility Contract

Status: normative. This document is the source of truth for how RustFS erasure-codes, stores, reads, reconstructs, and heals user data, and for the on-disk / on-wire compatibility contract that every future change must preserve. It governs the highest-risk code in the system: a regression here can silently corrupt or lose all user data, or make existing (and MinIO-migrated) objects permanently unreadable.

Erasure coding, quorum/heal, and metadata/on-disk formats are High-risk per AGENTS.md ("Risk tiers"). Any behavior-affecting change to code this document governs requires the full seven-role adversarial validation and, for anything touching decode or the on-disk format, a regression test against real on-disk and MinIO-migrated samples before merge.

This document describes the baseline (main) algorithm. Where the baseline has a known defect that a specific change corrects, that is called out inline; the invariant stated is always the correct rule the code must converge to, never the defect.

How to use this document

• Before changing anything under crates/ecstore/src/erasure/, crates/filemeta/, crates/ecstore/src/set_disk/, the storage-class / layout code, or any decode boundary, read §12 (Invariants checklist) and §13 (Change procedure) first.
• This spec is normative for the algorithm and the compatibility contract. It defers to, and must not duplicate, these existing documents (cross-link, do not restate):
  • minio-file-format-compat.md — owns the xl.meta / .metadata.bin MinIO interop gap-analysis, the real-MinIO fixture proof, the version-support matrix, and the out-of-scope list.
  • placement-repair-invariants.md — owns object-to-set placement (which erasure set a key lands in), per-set readiness/lock quorum, scanner/heal admission, and the behavior-change gates.
  • ecstore-layout-boundary.md — owns the ecstore module ownership map, FormatV3 set-ordering and disk-UUID-position invariants, and where the erasure engine physically lives.
  • decommission-compatibility.md — owns moving encoded objects between pools (decommission/rebalance) and its persisted PoolMeta contract.
  • ../operations/tier-ilm-debugging.md — owns the ILM/tier runtime runbook, the dual internal-metadata-key table, the defensive binary-UUID read pattern, and the xl.meta inspection tooling (dump_fileinfo / dump_versions).
  • AGENTS.md "Cross-Cutting Domain Invariants" — dual internal metadata keys, defensive UUID reads, unversioned tier buckets.
  • ../../ARCHITECTURE.md — crate roles (ecstore, filemeta, the rustfs-erasure-codec codec fork, heal, scanner).
• How references work here. Code is cited by file path plus symbol name (function / type / constant), never by line number — symbols survive refactors, are greppable, and rename only on a deliberate change. scripts/check_doc_paths.sh validates the paths on every commit. The normative content is the rule; the linked file is where it is implemented. When you rename a governed symbol or change a governed behavior, update this document in the same change (§13) — this spec is what the next change is checked against, so a stale spec is a defect, not just documentation drift.

Table of contents

1. Model and industry standard
2. Geometry: pools, sets, drives, parity
3. Distribution: shard placement within a set
4. Encoding algorithm
5. Bitrot protection
6. On-disk format (xl.meta)
7. Write path and write quorum
8. Read path and read quorum
9. Healing
10. Quorum rules (summary)
11. Compatibility contract and decode tolerance
12. Invariants checklist (the frozen contract)
13. Change procedure and guardrails
14. References

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1. Model and industry standard

RustFS stores every object as a Reed–Solomon erasure code across the drives of one erasure set. A set of N drives is split into data_blocks data shards and parity_blocks parity shards, N = data_blocks + parity_blocks. The code is MDS (Maximum Distance Separable): the object is reconstructable from any data_blocks of the N shards, and it tolerates the loss of up to parity_blocks drives per set.

Two codec backends exist, selected per object from its metadata (never a runtime toggle):

• Modern backend — Reed–Solomon over GF(2⁸) using rustfs-erasure-codec (a RustFS fork of reed-solomon-erasure v8, Cargo.toml), imported as reed_solomon_erasure::galois_8::ReedSolomon (erasure.rs). Vandermonde generator matrix; algorithm string "rs-vandermonde" (object_api/mod.rs). The GF(2⁸) field bounds total shards per set far above the geometry cap of 16 (§2). Used for all new writes — and, because MinIO uses the same rs-vandermonde GF(2⁸) scheme, for all MinIO-migrated objects too.
• Legacy backend — Reed–Solomon over GF(2¹⁶) using reed-solomon-simd v3.1 (Cargo.toml), imported at erasure.rs. Used only to read and heal objects written in RustFS's own older ("main branch") format — the rmp_serde-serialized layout detected by uses_legacy_checksum (see §11). This backend is not MinIO-compatible; MinIO-migrated data is decoded by the modern GF(2⁸) backend above (see minio-file-format-compat.md). The backend is chosen per object from its metadata (uses_legacy_checksum), never by a runtime toggle.

Industry alignment (all confirmed in code): byte-oriented RS over GF(2⁸) with a Vandermonde matrix, 1 MiB erasure block, and HighwayHash-256 bitrot checksums with a π-derived key — the same family and defaults MinIO uses. This is what makes byte-level xl.meta interoperability with MinIO possible (see minio-file-format-compat.md).

Where the code lives: the erasure engine is owned by crates/ecstore/src/erasure/ and is crate-private; the xl.meta model is owned by crates/filemeta. See ecstore-layout-boundary.md.

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2. Geometry: pools, sets, drives, parity

2.1 Pools → sets → drives

A deployment is a list of pools; each pool's drives are partitioned into equal-size erasure sets; each set has N drives. Set-size selection lives in disks_layout.rs: the chosen set size is the largest member of SET_SIZES that divides the GCD of the pool sizes and is symmetric across the ellipsis patterns, preferring the fewest sets (get_set_indexes, common_set_drive_count, possible_set_counts_with_symmetry).

• INVARIANT — set size. SET_SIZES = [2, 3, …, 16] (disks_layout.rs); is_valid_set_size requires 2 ≤ N ≤ 16 (disks_layout.rs). Every multi-drive (ellipses) erasure set has N ∈ 2..=16 drives, bounding data_blocks + parity_blocks ≤ 16 (which downstream metadata validation may rely on). A single-drive deployment is the one exception: it runs at N = 1 with parity 0 via a separate layout path (is_single_drive_layout) that does not go through is_valid_set_size.
• The RUSTFS_ERASURE_SET_DRIVE_COUNT override may pin the set size but only to a value that appears in the symmetric divisor set and still passes is_valid_set_size (≤ 16). It is a TUNABLE, not a way past the cap.
• Runtime geometry is read back from the on-disk format: set_drive_count = format.erasure.sets[0].len(). The disk-UUID position within format.erasure.sets must not change — see ecstore-layout-boundary.md.

Which set a key lands in (object-to-set placement) is a separate hash, owned by placement-repair-invariants.md (get_hashed_set_index; V1 crc_hash, V2/V3 sip_hash seeded with the format ID). Do not conflate it with the intra-set distribution in §3.

2.2 Parity selection

Default parity by drive count — default_parity_count(N) (storageclass.rs):

N	1	2–3	4–5	6–7	≥8
default parity	0	1	2	3	4

Two storage classes: STANDARD (SC) and REDUCED_REDUNDANCY (RRS) (storageclass.rs), configured as "EC:<parity>" via the standard / rrs config keys or the RUSTFS_STORAGE_CLASS_STANDARD / RUSTFS_STORAGE_CLASS_RRS env overrides. Absent config falls back to default_parity_count (SC) and 1, or 0 on a single drive (RRS).

• INVARIANT — parity bounds. Parity must satisfy parity ≤ N/2 for both classes, and SC parity ≥ RRS parity when both are non-zero (storageclass.rs, validate_parity / validate_parity_inner). Enforcement nuance to be aware of: validate_parity_inner (the path a user-configured EC:<parity> storage class flows through) only applies the parity ≤ N/2 check for N > 2, so degenerate small-set values (e.g. EC:2 on N = 2, giving data_blocks = 0) are not caught there; the standalone validate_parity enforces the bound unconditionally but is applied only to the resolved default parity. A change that lets user-configured parity reach a write path must not assume the ≤ N/2 bound was enforced for N ≤ 2. Parity 0 is permitted (single-drive / capacity setups); there is no non-zero minimum.
• INVARIANT — per-pool validity. Each pool's resolved parity must be valid for that pool's own drive count. A heterogeneous deployment (pools of different widths) must resolve parity per pool; applying one pool's parity to a narrower pool can drive data_blocks = N − parity to 0 and make encoding impossible.
  • Baseline defect: main computes common_parity_drives from the first pool only and applies it to every pool (store/init.rs, ec_drives_no_config at store/init_format.rs); this is issue #4801 (a smaller later pool panics with TooFewDataShards). The correct rule is per-pool resolution.

Per-write layout (the numbers that go into xl.meta), from the storage class or default_parity_count, with opts.max_parity forcing N/2 for internal writes (set_disk/ops/object.rs):

parity_drives = storage_class_parity(x-amz-storage-class) or set default_parity_count
if opts.max_parity: parity_drives = N / 2
data_drives  = N − parity_drives
write_quorum = data_drives ; if data_drives == parity_drives: write_quorum += 1

• INVARIANT — layout arithmetic. data_blocks = N − parity; read_quorum = data_blocks; write_quorum = data_blocks, bumped to data_blocks + 1 iff data_blocks == parity_blocks (so a symmetric split cannot commit on a bare data-quorum). See core/io_primitives.rs (default_read_quorum, default_write_quorum).

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3. Distribution: shard placement within a set

Within a set, the N shards of an object are assigned to drives by a distribution vector that is a permutation of 1..=N, derived from the object key — FileInfo::new (fileinfo.rs):

N       = data_blocks + parity_blocks
key_crc = CRC32/ISO-HDLC( "bucket/object" bytes )
start   = key_crc % N
distribution[i-1] = 1 + ((start + i) % N)   for i in 1..=N   // a cyclic rotation of 1..=N

• INVARIANT — distribution is a permutation of 1..=N. is_valid_distribution requires exactly N entries, each in 1..=N, no duplicates (fileinfo.rs). Values of 0 or > N are used as distribution[k] − 1 slot indices and would underflow / index out of bounds; the shuffle helpers additionally checked_sub(1) and bounds-filter defensively (set_disk/metadata.rs).
• INVARIANT — key-only, version-independent. The distribution depends only on the object key ([bucket, object].join("/")), so all versions of a key share one distribution. Changing the derivation would misplace every existing object's shards. See also the placement-algorithm-preservation gate in placement-repair-invariants.md.
• erasure.index on a per-disk FileInfo is that disk's 1-based canonical shard slot. On write, disk k is placed at slot distribution[k] − 1 and the shard written there records erasure.index = slot + 1 (set_disk/metadata.rs, shuffle_disks_and_parts_metadata). On read/heal, placement is re-derived by matching distribution[k] == parts_metadata[k].erasure.index, with a mod-time fallback when too many indices are inconsistent.

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4. Encoding algorithm

4.1 Block size and shard sizing

• INVARIANT — block size. New objects use BLOCK_SIZE_V2 = 1 MiB (object_api/mod.rs); it is stored per version in ErasureInfo.block_size and must be read back from metadata, never assumed.
• INVARIANT — shard-size formulas (frozen for on-disk compatibility). Two formulas exist and must both be preserved:
  • Modern (erasure.rs): calc_shard_size(block_size, data_shards) = block_size.div_ceil(data_shards).
  • Legacy (erasure.rs): calc_shard_size_legacy = (block_size.div_ceil(data_shards) + 1) & !1 — round the ceiling up to the nearest even number, byte-identical to MinIO's even-padding and to filemeta's own calc_shard_size (fileinfo.rs).
  • The runtime codec picks the formula from uses_legacy (erasure.rs); the metadata layer ErasureInfo::shard_size always uses the even-padded form. Modern reads/writes drive off Erasure::shard_size.
• Whole-file logical shard size — shard_file_size(total_length) (erasure.rs): 0 for empty, pass-through for negative, else full_blocks * shard_size() + shard_size_fn(last_block_size, data_shards). This is the pre-bitrot size; the on-disk file is larger by the per-block hash bytes (§5).

4.2 Per-block encode

Erasure::encode_data(data) (erasure.rs):

1. per_shard_size = shard_size_fn(data.len(), data_shards); empty ⇒ emit N empty shards.
2. Copy data into a buffer and zero-pad the tail to per_shard_size * N.
3. Split into N equal per_shard_size chunks (first data_shards are data, rest are parity).
4. If parity_shards > 0, RS-encode in place to fill the parity chunks (legacy or modern encoder).
5. Emit N shard byte-slices (zero-copy views into the one buffer).

• INVARIANT — zero-padding of the final block. The last (short) block is padded to per_shard_size before encoding; this is what makes shard_file_size exactly reversible on read. Two allocation-optimized variants (encode_data_owned, encode_data_bytes_mut) produce byte-identical output (asserted by tests in erasure.rs).

4.3 Streaming pipeline and fan-out

Erasure::encode / encode_batched (encode.rs) read the source in block_size chunks on a producer task, encode each block, and stream the N shards of each block over a bounded channel to a consumer that fans them out through MultiWriter to the N shard writers. block_size == 0 is rejected up front (InvalidInput). In-flight memory is bounded by the channel depth (default budget 32 MiB). A clean EOF stops the loop; the final partial block is padded per §4.2.

• INVARIANT — write-quorum enforcement during encode. MultiWriter writes shard i to writer i, drops any stalled/failed/short writer (sets it to None), and after each block requires nil_count ≥ write_quorum, else fails with a reduced-write-quorum error (encode.rs). Shard index → writer index → on-disk position is fixed.

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5. Bitrot protection

Each shard file is self-verifying against silent disk corruption.

• INVARIANT — hash algorithm. The production bitrot hash is HighwayHash256S (streaming HighwayHash-256, 32-byte digest), the default of HashAlgorithm (hash.rs); ErasureInfo::get_checksum_info defaults an unspecified part to HighwayHash256S (fileinfo.rs). Legacy files recorded as HighwayHash256S are verified with the legacy fixed-key variant HighwayHash256SLegacy (key [3,4,2,1]), selected on read when fi.uses_legacy_checksum (set_disk/read.rs). The modern key is the π-derived MAGIC_HIGHWAY_HASH256_KEY (hash.rs).
• INVARIANT — on-disk shard layout is interleaved [hash][data] per block. BitrotWriter::write prepends hash_algo.hash_encode(block) before each block, written in one vectored write (bitrot.rs). On-disk shard file size — bitrot_shard_file_size(size, shard_size, algo) (bitrot.rs): for the two streaming Highway variants = size.div_ceil(shard_size) * 32 + size (one 32-byte hash per block); for any other algorithm (whole-file bitrot) = size.
• INVARIANT — verify before use. BitrotReader reads [hash][data] in one pass, recomputes the hash, and returns InvalidData "bitrot hash mismatch" on mismatch; the data is handed to the caller only after verification passes. A short/truncated shard returns UnexpectedEof even under skip_verify (bitrot.rs).
• Only the streaming interleaved layout is written/verified; it is self-consistent only for HighwayHash256S / HighwayHash256SLegacy. The default resolving to HighwayHash256S is load-bearing (backlog#959, documented at bitrot.rs).

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6. On-disk format (xl.meta)

This section is the load-bearing compatibility contract for stored metadata. It is byte-compatible with MinIO's xl.meta; interop proof, the fixture corpus, and the out-of-scope list are owned by minio-file-format-compat.md — cite it, do not re-derive interop claims.

6.1 Container

Produced by FileMeta::marshal_msg (codec.rs), constants in filemeta.rs:

Offset	Bytes	Content
0	4	Magic XL_FILE_HEADER = "XL2 "
4	2	major = 1, little-endian u16
6	2	minor = 3, little-endian u16
8	5	msgpack bin32 marker 0xc6 + big-endian u32 length of the meta blob
13	N	meta blob (msgpack; the versions array)
13+N	5	0xce (msgpack uint32) + big-endian u32 = xxh64(meta, seed=0) truncated to u32
13+N+5	…	inline data blob, appended verbatim

• INVARIANT. Magic "XL2 "; LE u16 major/minor; the bin32-with-BE-length meta framing; the trailing 0xce+BE-u32 xxh64 CRC with XXHASH_SEED = 0. CRC mismatch is fatal. is_indexed_meta gates inline/indexed layout on major == 1 && minor ≥ 3.
• Meta blob starts with three msgpack ints: header_ver (≤ 3), meta_ver (≤ 3), versions_len; then per version two msgpack bin blobs: the marshaled FileMetaVersionHeader and the opaque marshaled FileMetaVersion body (FileMetaShallowVersion { header, meta }, version.rs). The body is parsed lazily.
• Constants: XL_FILE_VERSION_MAJOR = 1, XL_FILE_VERSION_MINOR = 3, XL_HEADER_VERSION = 3, XL_META_VERSION = 3 (filemeta.rs).

6.2 Shallow header (FileMetaVersionHeader)

Fields: version_id, mod_time, signature: [u8;4], version_type, flags: u8, ec_n: u8, ec_m: u8 (version.rs). Three wire versions, dispatched by header_ver (each version then validates its array length as a consistency check):

header_ver	array len	fields (in order)
1	4	version_id, mod_time, type, flags
2	5	version_id, mod_time, signature, type, flags
3 (current)	7	version_id, mod_time, signature, type, flags, ec_n, ec_m

• INVARIANT. A reader must branch on header_ver (the meta-blob int), not guess from length; each version's decoder then enforces its array length (4/5/7). Writes always emit v3 (len 7). ec_m = data, ec_n = parity (header order is ec_n then ec_m) — a mirror of the geometry for quorum decisions without parsing the body.
• INVARIANT — flags. FreeVersion = 1<<0, UsesDataDir = 1<<1, InlineData = 1<<2 (version.rs).
• The v3 header intentionally keeps a null version id as Some(nil) (null-version disambiguation via mod_time), unlike the body decoders which fold nil → None.
• signature is a RustFS-internal content hash for divergence/heal detection; it is recomputed on write and never compared byte-wise against MinIO.

6.3 Version body

VersionType — INVARIANT (numeric values): Invalid = 0, Object = 1, Delete = 2, Legacy = 3. The body wrapper FileMetaVersion is a msgpack map with INVARIANT keys Type, V1Obj, V2Obj, DelObj, v (write generation); a present-but-nil body is 0xc0; unknown keys are skipped for forward-compat.

MetaObject (V2Obj) — msgpack map, keys (INVARIANT): ID, DDir, EcAlgo, EcM, EcN, EcBSize, EcIndex, EcDist, CSumAlgo, PartNums, PartETags, PartSizes, PartASizes, PartIdx, Size, MTime, MetaSys, MetaUsr (version.rs). Notes:

• ID / DDir are 16 raw UUID bytes; nil ⇒ None on decode, None ⇒ 16 zero bytes on write.
• MTime is unix-nanos sint; UNIX_EPOCH ⇒ None, and None is omitted on write so it never round-trips to Some(epoch).
• EcDist is an array of per-shard slot values (not a bin blob). V2Obj does not store per-part bitrot checksums (only legacy V1 does).
• PartETags / PartASizes / MetaSys / MetaUsr are written as msgpack nil when empty; a reader must treat nil and empty identically. PartIdx is omitted entirely when empty.
• Part arrays are parallel and index-aligned: when parts are materialized (the all_parts decode path), PartNums / PartSizes / PartASizes must be equal length (mismatch ⇒ FileCorrupt, because indexing would panic or miscompute Content-Length/Range); PartETags / PartIdx are soft-guarded (applied only if length matches, empty index ⇒ None). When parts are not materialized the arrays are not cross-checked.
• INVARIANT — negative part.actual_size is a valid sentinel for "compressed, actual size unknown" (fileinfo.rs); it is carried verbatim and must not be rejected on decode (see §11).

MetaDeleteMarker (DelObj) — msgpack map, always 3 keys ID, MTime, MetaSys (version.rs); MetaSys is always written even when empty. Decode folds nil ID ⇒ None and epoch MTime ⇒ None, and skips unknown keys.

MetaObjectV1 (V1Obj / legacy xl.json-derived) — msgpack map, keys Version, Format ("xl"), Stat, Erasure, Meta, Parts, VersionID (a UUID string), DataDir (string). This is the only schema that stores per-part bitrot checksums in the body (Erasure.Checksums). Legacy timestamps use msgpack time ext (type 5 legacy / type -1). Required to read MinIO / legacy objects.

6.4 ErasureInfo and geometry on disk

ErasureInfo (fileinfo.rs): algorithm ("rs-vandermonde" for RS), data_blocks (=EcM), parity_blocks (=EcN), block_size (=EcBSize), index (=EcIndex), distribution: Vec<usize> (=EcDist), checksums: Vec<ChecksumInfo> (empty for V2Obj). On write, From<FileInfo> hardcodes ReedSolomon + HighwayHash algo enums.

6.5 Internal metadata keys (dual prefix)

• INVARIANT — dual prefixes. Internal keys carry both x-rustfs-internal-<suffix> and x-minio-internal-<suffix> (metadata_compat.rs). Write path writes both (insert_str / insert_bytes); read path prefers RustFS, falls back to MinIO (get_str / get_bytes). Both prefixes must stay recognized on read and emitted on write — this is what makes MinIO-migrated keys round-trip without rewrite. Case sensitivity is not uniform: key classification (is_internal_key / has_internal_suffix) and get_str are ASCII-case-insensitive, but get_bytes (which reads the binary meta_sys values) matches only the two canonical lowercase keys — do not assume mixed-case foreign meta_sys keys are tolerated. See AGENTS.md Cross-Cutting Domain Invariants and the runbook table in ../operations/tier-ilm-debugging.md.
• INVARIANT — suffix strings (partial list, all exact): inline-data, compression, actual-size, crc, transition-status, transitioned-object, transitioned-versionID, transition-tier, free-version, purgestatus, the replication suffixes, tier-free-versionID, tier-free-marker, data-mov, healing (metadata_compat.rs). These are the second half of on-disk keys; changing one orphans existing metadata.
• INVARIANT — transitioned-versionID encoding. Stored as 16 raw UUID bytes in meta_sys[transitioned-versionID] (RustFS-native); read defensively as Uuid::from_slice(...).ok().filter(!nil) so absent / empty / nil / any non-16-byte value all decode to "no tier version" (None) — never a fatal read error (§11). Note MinIO stores this value as a UUID string (non-16-byte); on the baseline that string decodes to None under the same rule (RustFS transitioned-xl.meta interop is out of scope per minio-file-format-compat.md). A reader may additionally recover the string form, but the load-bearing invariant is only "tolerate, never fail the read".

6.6 Inline data

Small objects store their payload inline after the container CRC (filemeta_inline.rs): 1 version byte (INLINE_DATA_VER = 1) then a msgpack map of version-key → bin. INVARIANT — the map key is the version-id string, "null" (NULL_VERSION_ID) for the null/None version, else the lowercase hyphenated UUID. Presence is signalled by both meta_sys[inline-data] and the header InlineData flag, which must agree. The inline threshold is should_inline (storageclass.rs): inline if shard_size ≤ inline_block/8 for versioned buckets, else ≤ inline_block; DEFAULT_INLINE_BLOCK = 128 KiB.

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7. Write path and write quorum

put_object and multipart resolve the write layout (§2.2), encode (§4), write shards with bitrot (§5), then commit atomically.

• Encode-time gates: writable disks < write_quorum ⇒ ErasureWriteQuorum; committed shards < write_quorum after encode ⇒ error (set_disk/ops/object.rs).
• INVARIANT — atomic commit with rollback. Commit is rename_data (per-disk temp → final) fanned across all disks (core/io_primitives.rs). If write quorum is not met (reduce_write_quorum_errs), every successful disk is undone (delete_version{undo_write:true}) and the write fails. A write that misses quorum is rolled back, never left partially committed.
• On success, data_dir is the value voted by ≥ write_quorum disks (reduce_common_data_dir); a classify_rename_convergence result drives post-commit heal.
• The write layout is centralized (a WriteLayout / resolve_write_layout abstraction resolves per-pool parity, storage class, and max_parity); the baseline computes it inline in the write path.

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8. Read path and read quorum

• INVARIANT — read quorum = data_blocks. object_quorum_from_meta returns (read_quorum = data_blocks, write_quorum) (set_disk/metadata.rs); parity_blocks = common_parity(...) is the parity value held by the most disks that still reaches its own read quorum. When default_parity_count == 0, read = write = all shards.
• Authoritative FileInfo selection — find_file_info_in_quorum (set_disk/metadata.rs) groups valid metas by a content-identity SHA-256 (file_info_quorum_hash) that hashes size/flags/mod_time/transition/version_id/data_dir/parts and, for real objects, data/parity/distribution — excluding replication-status keys so replication noise never splits quorum. A meta counts only if its mod_time equals the common mod_time (or etag matches when mod_time is absent). The winning hash must reach quorum, else ErasureReadQuorum. Latest-version reads may escalate to write_quorum to avoid resurrecting a partially-overwritten version.
• INVARIANT — decode needs ≥ data_blocks shards. The stripe reader requires available_shards ≥ data_shards; below that the read fails closed with a read-quorum error (never silent truncation) (set_disk/read.rs, set_disk/shard_source.rs). Before any block_size / data_shards division, has_valid_dimensions() must hold (block_size > 0 && data_shards > 0) or the read fails instead of dividing by zero (erasure.rs).
• If available ≥ data_blocks but some shards are missing, the read is served and a background read-repair heal is enqueued.
• INVARIANT — cross-stripe read verification. When a data shard is missing and available > data_blocks, reconstruction regenerates parity and compares it to the surviving parity; a mismatch is InvalidData "inconsistent read source shards" (backlog#832), catching corruption that passed per-shard bitrot but disagrees across the stripe (erasure.rs).

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9. Healing

Version-aware heal (set_disk/ops/heal.rs) reconstructs missing/corrupt shards and regenerates missing xl.meta from quorum. Key guards:

• INVARIANT — reconstructability. Heal refuses when meta_to_heal_count > parity_blocks (relaxed only if a quorum etag exists) or when any part loses more than parity_blocks shards.
• INVARIANT — geometry match. latest_meta.erasure.distribution.len() must equal the online-disk, outdated-disk, and parts-metadata counts, else heal refuses ("backend disks manually modified"). A real object missing data_dir is FileCorrupt.
• Data-safety guard (backlog#920). If data shards survive on ≥ data_blocks disks, regenerate the missing xl.meta from a valid FileInfo and re-drive heal rather than dangling-delete; torn writes (< data_blocks) fall through to dangling-delete handling.
• Healed shards are written to the outdated disks, each recording erasure.index = slot + 1, then rename_data to final. Heal admission / scanner budget is owned by placement-repair-invariants.md.

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10. Quorum rules (summary)

Operation	Quorum	Source
Read (payload)	data_blocks = N − parity	set_disk/metadata.rs
Decode (shards needed)	≥ data_blocks	set_disk/read.rs
Write (payload)	data_blocks, +1 iff data == parity	set_disk/core/io_primitives.rs
Delete marker (write + metadata vote)	N/2 + 1 (majority)	set_disk/ops/object.rs, set_disk/metadata.rs
opts.max_parity internal writes	parity = N/2	set_disk/ops/object.rs

• INVARIANT — delete markers vote by majority, not data-quorum. A delete marker (or a version whose parity reads 0) uses N/2 + 1, both on the write path and in metadata voting.

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11. Compatibility contract and decode tolerance

RustFS is a read-forward-compatible consumer: it writes the current format and reads older RustFS formats and MinIO-migrated data.

• Version anchors — accept-older, reject-newer. Writes emit XL_META_VERSION = 3. The reader accepts container major == 1 with any minor, header_ver ≤ 3, and meta_ver ≤ 3 (1/2/3), and rejects only newer (codec.rs). Legacy meta_ver = 2 objects are supported and normalized on rewrite. XL_META_VERSION / BUCKET_METADATA_* are compatibility anchors — bumping any requires a read path for the prior value plus a migration story (see minio-file-format-compat.md).
• MinIO interop is fixture-proven against a real MinIO corpus; migration is one-way (MinIO → RustFS). Reverse round-trip (a live MinIO re-reading RustFS drives) and formats MinIO SNSD never wrote (CORS / public-access-block / bucket-ACL, transitioned xl.meta) are explicitly out of scope — owned by minio-file-format-compat.md.

Decode-tolerance invariants (be liberal in what you accept on decode). These are the contract this document newly codifies. Metadata read from disk or a peer is untrusted input, but decode must not reject shapes that legitimate older / foreign writers produce. Validation may be added, but only if it never rejects data the current or any prior RustFS/MinIO writer can legitimately produce:

• Nil UUID ⇒ None. version_id, data_dir, transitioned-versionID read as Uuid::from_slice(...).ok().filter(!nil) — absent, empty, and nil all mean "no value", never Uuid::nil() (version.rs; AGENTS.md Cross-Cutting Domain Invariants).
• Epoch mod_time ⇒ None, and None is omitted on write.
• Skip unknown msgpack fields for forward-compat (Go dc.Skip() parity) at every decoder.
• Hard-guard only length-critical arrays (PartNums / PartSizes / PartASizes must match), soft-guard recomputable ones (PartETags / PartIdx applied only if length matches; empty ⇒ default). All-empty PartETags must equal absent.
• Negative part.actual_size is a valid compressed-unknown sentinel and must be tolerated on decode (the read path's get_actual_size already relies on it). Do not reject actual_size < 0.
• Malformed transitioned-versionID ⇒ None (or recovered from the MinIO string form), never a fatal read error. A slightly-corrupt or foreign tier id must not make an otherwise-readable object (or free-version record) unreadable.
• Dual-key read fallback (RustFS prefix, then MinIO prefix).
• Container/header/meta versions: accept ≤ current, reject only >.

Two related hardening exceptions that are legitimate (fail-closed is correct there): a length mismatch between required parallel part arrays is FileCorrupt (indexing would corrupt returned data), and a CRC / bitrot mismatch is fatal (the bytes are provably wrong). Everything else on the decode path must degrade to a tolerant default, not an error.

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12. Invariants checklist (the frozen contract)

Do not change any of the following without a format-version bump, a read path for the old value, a migration story, and a real-sample compatibility test (§13):

Geometry & math

• Set size N ∈ 2..=16 for multi-drive layouts (single-drive deployments run at N = 1, parity 0); N = data_blocks + parity_blocks.
• parity ≤ N/2; STANDARD parity ≥ RRS parity; parity resolved per pool for its own N.
• read_quorum = data_blocks; write_quorum = data_blocks (+1 iff data == parity); delete-marker quorum N/2 + 1.
• Decode requires ≥ data_blocks shards; below that, fail closed. Writes missing quorum roll back.

Algorithm

• Modern RS over GF(2⁸) (rs-vandermonde) for new writes; legacy GF(2¹⁶) for old files, selected by uses_legacy_checksum.
• block_size = 1 MiB (BLOCK_SIZE_V2), stored per version.
• Shard-size formulas: modern div_ceil; legacy (div_ceil + 1) & !1. Final block zero-padded before encode.
• Bitrot HighwayHash256S (legacy key variant for old files); interleaved [hash][data] per block; bitrot_shard_file_size = ceil(size/shard_size)*32 + size; verify before use.

On-disk format

• Container: "XL2 ", LE major/minor 1/3, bin32(BE-len) meta, 0xce+BE-u32 xxh64(seed 0) CRC, trailing inline blob.
• Header dispatched by header_ver; per-version array length (4/5/7) validated on decode; v3 order id, mtime, sig, type, flags, ec_n, ec_m; flags FreeVersion|UsesDataDir|InlineData.
• VersionType {0,1,2,3}; wrapper keys Type/V1Obj/V2Obj/DelObj/v; V2Obj key set (§6.3); EcDist an array; nil == empty for the four collection fields; PartIdx omitted when empty.
• UUIDs 16 raw bytes (nil ⇄ None); mod_time unix-nanos (epoch ⇄ None); negative actual_size sentinel.
• Dual internal prefixes and exact suffix strings; inline map keyed by "null" / version-UUID.

Distribution

• distribution is a permutation of 1..=N from CRC32(bucket/object) % N rotation; key-only. Object-to-set placement hash is separate (owned by placement-repair-invariants.md).

Decode tolerance

• All of §11.

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13. Change procedure and guardrails

• Risk tier. All of the above is High-risk (AGENTS.md). Any behavior-affecting change requires the full seven-role adversarial validation.
• Keep this document in sync. A change to any governed behavior, formula, format field, or invariant must update this spec in the same PR; renaming a cited symbol must update its reference here. The spec is normative and is the checklist the next change is reviewed against, so drift is a correctness defect. References are symbol-based (not line numbers) specifically so ordinary refactors do not invalidate them — but semantic changes still must.
• Adding an on-disk field must be additive: new msgpack key or a minor/meta_ver bump with a read path for the old value; keep decoders skipping unknown keys; write both internal-key prefixes; never repurpose or reorder existing keys or header array positions.
• Never make a decode boundary stricter than what §11 allows without (a) proving no legitimate older-RustFS or MinIO-migrated shape is rejected, and (b) a regression test against real on-disk and MinIO fixtures. New validation belongs at the trust boundary and must fail open to a tolerant default, not closed to FileCorrupt, for anything recoverable. (Concretely: rejecting a negative actual_size, or hard-failing a non-16-byte transitioned-versionID, breaks existing data — see §11.)
• Codec construction. The baseline exposes panicking Erasure::new / new_with_options (the codec's shard-count validation surfaces as an .expect panic), plus has_valid_dimensions() as the read-path preflight (erasure.rs). Production paths that build a codec from on-disk geometry must guard with has_valid_dimensions() first; a fallible constructor is preferred over panicking in any path reachable from untrusted metadata.
• Guardrail scripts (part of make pre-commit / make pre-pr):
  • check_architecture_migration_rules.sh keeps the erasure engine crate-private and under its owner module, and keeps erasure-cache / GLOBAL_IS_ERASURE* access behind ecstore helpers.
  • check_doc_paths.sh validates that every repo path this document cites exists — keep citations to real paths.
• Tooling. Inspect on-disk metadata with dump_fileinfo / dump_versions per ../operations/tier-ilm-debugging.md rather than guessing at bytes.

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14. References

• Reed–Solomon codes; MDS property and GF(2⁸) byte-oriented coding — the standard basis for rs-vandermonde (Vandermonde generator matrix over GF(2⁸)).
• rustfs-erasure-codec (RustFS fork of reed-solomon-erasure, GF(2⁸)) and reed-solomon-simd (GF(2¹⁶)) — declared in the workspace Cargo.toml.
• HighwayHash-256 — the bitrot checksum family; π-derived default key.
• MinIO xl.meta v1.3 format lineage — RustFS is byte-compatible for read + one-way migration; see minio-file-format-compat.md for the fixture-proven matrix and scope.
• Related invariants: placement-repair-invariants.md, ecstore-layout-boundary.md, decommission-compatibility.md, ../operations/tier-ilm-debugging.md, and AGENTS.md Cross-Cutting Domain Invariants.