Artifactory Federation Service Installation

Enable Artifactory Federation Service (RTFS) to synchronize artifact metadata securely across multiple customer sites.

The Artifactory Federation Service (RTFS) is used for the timely synchronization of huge volumes of artifact metadata between customer sites.

❗️

Important

The Artifactory Federation Service requires:

  • Artifactory 7.104 or later.
  • For Linux packages and other native installers (RPM, Debian, and so on), Artifactory 7.111 or later is required to run RTFS.
  • PostgreSQL 13 or later for the RTFS service. RTFS always uses PostgreSQL for its own metadata and queues. Artifactory may use Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, or another supported database if you provision PostgreSQL dedicated to RTFS and configure rtfs.database—supported from Artifactory 7.146.7. RTFS cannot use a non-PostgreSQL database.

For more information, see the Artifactory Federation Service.

❗️

Important

Self-hosted customers who wish to become early adopters of this service are asked to contact JFrog so that we can evaluate your needs and guide you through the migration process.

Please note that the current version of the Artifactory Federation Service does not support the use of self-signed certificates or certificates signed by a custom Certificate Authority (CA). Self-hosted customers must use certificates signed by a trusted CA when setting up their Federation.

Enable Artifactory Federation Service

The Artifactory Federation Service can be enabled only through native installations (such as Docker, Docker Compose, Windows, RPM, Linux, and Debian) or via Helm installation for Kubernetes. By default, this service is disabled.

  1. Enable Artifactory Federation service in Artifactory by updating the Artifactory system.yaml file (or Helm values.yaml overrides).

    Minimal enablement (Artifactory already uses PostgreSQL, or you rely on shared platform database settings for RTFS):

    rtfs:
      enabled: true

    Dedicated PostgreSQL for RTFS (for example, Artifactory on Oracle with JDBC settings under shared.database, and RTFS on PostgreSQL with the rtfs.database block below)—requires Artifactory 7.146.7 or later. Use an empty PostgreSQL database; RTFS creates schemas on first start.

    rtfs:
      enabled: true
      database:
        type: postgresql
        driver: org.postgresql.Driver
        url: "jdbc:postgresql://<POSTGRES_HOST>:5432/<RTFS_DATABASE_NAME>"
        username: "<RTFS_DB_USER>"
        password: "<RTFS_DB_PASSWORD>"

    Replace placeholders with your JDBC URL, database user, and password. Use TLS or additional JDBC parameters as required by your database policy (same pattern as other services in Artifactory System YAML).

    For HA Installations

    You must enable Artifactory Federation microservice in all Artifactory nodes.

    For Helm Installations

    Add the above settings to your custom-values.yaml (or equivalent overrides) and run the helm upgrade command.

    Optional dedicated RTFS database in Helm (Artifactory Helm chart)—when set, RTFS uses this instead of the shared database:

    rtfs:
      enabled: true
      database:
        type: postgresql
        url: "jdbc:postgresql://<POSTGRES_HOST>:5432/<RTFS_DATABASE_NAME>"
        user: "<RTFS_DB_USER>"
        password: "<RTFS_DB_PASSWORD>"

    You can supply credentials from Kubernetes secrets instead of inline values—for example:

    rtfs:
      enabled: true
      database:
        secrets:
          url:
            name: my-rtfs-db-secret
            key: db-url
          user:
            name: my-rtfs-db-secret
            key: db-user
          password:
            name: my-rtfs-db-secret
            key: db-password

    Exact keys match your chart version; confirm against the values.yaml bundled with the chart you deploy.

  2. Restart Artifactory.

  3. Verify if the Artifactory Federation Service is up and running:

    • For self-hosted versions 7.111.12 and later or 7.117.5 and later:

      GET http://<JFROG_PLATFORM_URL>/rtfs/api/v1/system/liveness

    • For earlier self-hosted versions:

      GET http://<JFROG_PLATFORM_URL>/artifactory/service/rtfs/api/v1/system/liveness

    A 200 response indicates the presence of Artifactory Federation Service.

  4. [Users with existing Federated repositories] Migrate your existing Federated repositories (including configurations, states, and events) to the new service. For more information, see Migrate to the Artifactory Federation Service.


📘

Federation over Bridge

RTFS supports federation over JFrog Bridge for secure communication between SaaS and self-managed environments without VPN. For details, see Federation with Secure Private Link (Bridge).