Console Compatibility Notes

Differences between SILO Console and the upstream MinIO Console

Latest release: Console v2.4.1 (2026-09-16), with restricted shared downloads, password-permission separation, streaming ZIPs and signed release artifacts. See the component matrix.

SILO Console is Silo’s build of the MinIO Console. This page records where the two are interchangeable and where they differ.

pgsty/silo-console continues the upstream minio/console history from its final commit, feff71e4 (2026-04-16); the rebrand begins at 50797deb (2026-08-04). The upstream repository is no longer published — github.com/minio/console now returns 404, where minio/mc was merely archived — so the source lineage survives only in this fork. The Go module path still resolves, because the module proxy continues to serve the versions it already cached. Earlier release records: v2.0.0, v2.1.0, v2.1.1, v2.2.0, and v2.2.1.

Principles

The fork follows the same rule as the rest of Silo: the shipped artifact and its channels are renamed; the interfaces other software depends on are not.

Renamed — the artifact on disk (silo-console), the product identity in the interface and in --version, the distribution channels, and the signing keys.
Unchanged — the Go module path github.com/minio/console, every CONSOLE_* environment variable (including CONSOLE_MINIO_SERVER and CONSOLE_MINIO_REGION), the REST API shapes the web application calls, and the packaging identifiers minio-console.service, console-user, and /etc/default/console, so an in-place package upgrade keeps working.
Severed — automatic self-update, telemetry, analytics, beacons, external scripts and fonts, and call-home. A release catalog is contacted only when one is explicitly configured, through SILO_RELEASE_SERVICE_HOST with RELEASE_SERVICE_HOST retained as a fallback.
Preserved — upstream copyright and the AGPL-3.0 license. Runtime output credits both MinIO, Inc. and PGSTY.

Note

SILO Console is not a generic S3 browser. Its administrative features need the MinIO-compatible administration APIs that Silo implements in addition to the S3 API.

What changed

1. The full administration console is retained

This is the largest functional difference, and it runs opposite to the usual direction of a fork. Upstream reduced its community console to an object browser. SILO Console keeps the complete administrative interface: dashboards, health, logs, diagnostics, and speed tests; bucket, object, lifecycle, replication, notification, and tier management; users, groups, service accounts, policies, identity providers, and KMS setup; and server configuration.

2. The dashboard targets Metrics V3

Dashboard widgets query the MinIO Metrics V3 catalog, the metric set current deployments actually scrape, with guards for its zero-value and per-node export semantics so a panel distinguishes a real zero from missing data. The mapping is recorded in docs/metrics-v3.md.

3. A smaller, quieter payload

The embedded frontend went from roughly 10 MB to under 3 MB, rebuilt reproducibly byte for byte and enforced by a release gate. There is no telemetry of any kind, and no external network dependency in the page itself.

4. Bilingual interface

The interface, help content, and documentation links are available in English and Chinese behind a per-page toggle, with no added runtime dependencies.

5. For developers: the module graph

Console v2.4.1 directly requires github.com/pgsty/silo-pkg/v3 v3.14.1 and upstream SDK v7.3.1-0.20260915093545-32e1f32cb176, retaining the historical github.com/minio/console module path. Embedders explicitly select these released sources:

replace github.com/minio/console => github.com/pgsty/silo-console v0.0.0-20260916075814-1360e26d976d
replace github.com/minio/mc => github.com/pgsty/mc v0.0.0-20260916070421-e952aa78f10a

Go does not inherit dependency replacements. Server must select both PGSTY Console and MC. go-systemd v22.6.0 preserves NetBSD compatibility and tablewriter v0.0.5 preserves the MC API. Legacy transitive minio/pkg from colorjson remains separate from the maintained silo-pkg policy implementation. The old minio/pkg => silo-pkg and minio-go => silo-go replacements are unsupported. See the component matrix and embedding guide.

The release-gating target is the coordinated SILO, Console, mcli and pkg stack. Upstream MinIO/MC probes remain non-blocking compatibility signals and do not require pkg downgrades or duplicate APIs.

Migration

The official image is docker.io/pgsty/silo-console. Pin :v2.4.1 for a specific release; latest advances after publication and image verification.

An existing MinIO Console deployment upgrades in place. The service unit, service account, and configuration file keep their names, and every CONSOLE_* variable is read unchanged, so the usual path is to install the silo-console package over the old one and restart.

Two behaviors change on first start and are worth expecting:

silo-console will not update itself. Roll out new versions through packages, images, or your orchestrator.
Any workflow that relied on the console reaching MinIO-operated services — the update feed, licensing, or telemetry — no longer has anything to reach.

For v2.4.1, also review the password-policy migration. Linux packages use /etc/silo-console/certs; migrate existing certificates or retain their old path in CONSOLE_OPTS in /etc/default/console before restarting. The service and configuration names are retained. Shared downloads require no new setting. See the v2.4.1 release notes.