# How to Enable Spaces Versioning

Spaces Object Storage is an S3-compatible service for storing and serving large amounts of data. The built-in Spaces CDN minimizes page load times, improves performance, and reduces bandwidth and infrastructure costs.

S3 Versioning maintains previous versions of objects in your buckets, which allows you to restore a previous version of an object if a user or application overwrites or deletes it.

Spaces [supports S3 Versioning](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/api/spaces/index.html.md#aws-s3-compatibility). By default, versioning is disabled on all buckets. You must use the Spaces API to enable or disable versioning.

## Check the Status of Versioning

To check whether versioning is enabled for a bucket, go to the [DigitalOcean Control Panel](https://cloud.digitalocean.com), in the left menu, click **Spaces Object Storage**, click the bucket you want to check, and then click the **Settings** tab.

![Bucket versioning access settings page showing project name, Object Versioning disabled, and Access Logs disabled.](https://docs.digitalocean.com/screenshots/spaces/bucket-versioning-access-settings.90bb0df1bd9bb778606d666f757ecc746bebe87d50244d743d8af068b4801bca.png)

The **Object Versioning** section shows whether versioning is **Enabled** or **Disabled**. You can only [enable versioning](#enable-spaces-versioning) via the DigitalOcena API.

## Get Prerequisites to Manage Versioning

To manage versioning for a Spaces bucket, you need a DigitalOcean Spaces API key and the bucket’s regional endpoint.

### Get Spaces API Key

To get your DigitalOcean Spaces API key, go to the [control panel](https://cloud.digitalocean.com), in the left menu, click **Spaces Object Storage**, click the bucket you want to manage versioning for, click the **Settings** tab, and then under the **Access Keys** section, save the **Access Key ID** and its secret key. To re-generate your key, on the right of the key, click **…**, and then click **Regenerate key** to get your new key details. If you don’t have a DigitalOcean Spaces API key, [create one](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/spaces/how-to/manage-access/index.html.md#access-keys)

### Get Bucket’s Regional Endpoint

The endpoint is always your bucket’s region followed by `.digitaloceanspaces.com`. Click **Copy** to copy the endpoint to your clipboard. Spaces versioning requires the regional endpoint, which always follows this format: `<region>.digitaloceanspaces.com`. In the top right corner by the **Origin endpoint** field, copy your bucket origin endpoint (for example, `my-bucket.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com`). The origin endpoint cannot be used when managing versioning as it causes the versioning requests to fail. Remove the bucket name and use only the regional endpoint (for example, `nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com`).

## Enable Spaces Versioning

Before enabling versioning, you need your [DigitalOcean Spaces API key and your bucket’s regional endpoint](#prereqs).

After getting your DigitalOcean Spaces API key details and endpoint, configure your AWS CLI using your key:

```bash
aws configure
```

Run the following command to enable versioning on your bucket. Replace `your_bucket_name` with your bucket name and `your_region` with your bucket’s region (for example, `nyc3`).

```bash
aws s3api put-bucket-versioning \
  --bucket your_bucket_name \
  --endpoint=https://your_region.digitaloceanspaces.com \
  --versioning-configuration Status=Enabled
```

Verify that versioning is enabled:

```bash
aws s3api get-bucket-versioning \
  --bucket your_bucket_name \
  --endpoint=https://your_region.digitaloceanspaces.com
```

If successful, the response shows that versioning is enabled and multi-factor authentication (MFA) is not required to delete objects.

```json
{
    "Status": "Enabled",
    "MFADelete": "Disabled"
}
```

## Permanently Delete a Specific Version

Deleting an object version permanently removes that version of the object. To permanently delete a specific object version, you need your [DigitalOcean Spaces API key and your bucket’s regional endpoint](#prereqs). Afterwards, list all bucket versions. Replace `your_filename`, `your_bucket_name`, and the endpoint with your specific values.

```bash
aws s3api list-object-versions \
  --prefix your_filename \
  --bucket your_bucket_name \
  --endpoint=https://your_region.digitaloceanspaces.com
```

Under `Versions`, find the `VersionId` you want to delete:

```json
{
    "Versions": [
        {
            "ETag": "\"<etag_latest>\"",
            "Size": <size_in_bytes>,
            "StorageClass": "STANDARD",
            "Key": "<object_key>",
            "VersionId": "<latest_version_id>",
            "IsLatest": true,
            "LastModified": "<timestamp>",
            "Owner": {
                "DisplayName": "<owner_id>",
                "ID": "<owner_id>"
            }
        },
        ...
        {
            "ETag": "\"<etag_previous>\"",
            "Size": <size_in_bytes>,
            "StorageClass": "STANDARD",
            "Key": "<object_key>",
            "VersionId": "<previous_version_id>",
            "IsLatest": false,
            "LastModified": "<timestamp>",
            "Owner": {
                "DisplayName": "<owner_id>",
                "ID": "<owner_id>"
            }
        }
    ]
}
```

Then, run the following command to delete a specific version of your bucket. Replace `your_bucket_name`, the endpoint, `your_filename`, and the `version_id_to_delete` with your specific values.

```bash
aws s3api delete-object \
  --bucket your_bucket_name \
  --endpoint=https://your_region.digitaloceanspaces.com \
  --key your_filename \
  --version-id version_id_to_delete
```

A response returning the `VersionId` of the bucket version you wanted to delete confirms deletion.

## Retrieve a Deleted Object in a Versioning-Enabled Bucket

Spaces creates a delete marker when you delete an object from a version-enabled bucket. The delete marker becomes the current version of the object, and the actual object becomes a previous version. Before retrieving a deleted object, you need your [DigitalOcean Spaces API key and your bucket’s regional endpoint](#prereqs).

To retrieve a deleted object in a versioning-enabled bucket, first list all versions of the object. Replace `your_filename` and `your_bucket_name` and the endpoint with your specific values.

```bash
aws s3api list-object-versions \
  --prefix your_filename \
  --bucket your_bucket_name \
  --endpoint=https://your_region.digitaloceanspaces.com
```

This returns both object versions and delete markers. Find the `VersionId` of the deleted object you want to restore.

```json
...
    "DeleteMarkers": [
        {
            "Owner": {
                "DisplayName": "<owner_id>",
                "ID": "<owner_id>"
            },
            "Key": "<object_key>",
            "VersionId": "<delete_marker_version_id>",
            "IsLatest": true,
            "LastModified": "<timestamp>"
        }
    ]
}
```

Then, remove the delete marker using the deleted bucket’s `VersionId`. Replace `your_bucket_name`, the endpoint, `your_filename`, and the `delete_market_version_id` with your specific values.

```bash
aws s3api delete-object \
  --bucket your_bucket_name \
  --endpoint=https://your_region.digitaloceanspaces.com \
  --key your_filename \
  --version-id delete_marker_version_id
```

If successful, the file is restored, and the response returns stating the object is deleted along with its `VersionId`:

```json
{
    "DeleteMarker": true,
    "VersionId": "delete_marker_version_id"
}
```