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Scaleway setup guide

This guide creates a Scaleway account, a private storage bucket for your backups, and an API key your backup software can use. A bucket is simply an online container for files.

Before you start

Set aside about ten minutes. You need an email address and a payment card — Scaleway asks for card details before it will create storage, and bills you directly for what you use, typically a few cents per gigabyte per month.

Three details decide whether the connection works at the end, so watch for them as you go. The location is chosen when the bucket is created and cannot be changed afterwards. The secret key is shown exactly once. And an API key acts inside one preferred Project, so a key made in the wrong project fails with “access denied” rather than something that names the real cause.

Create the account, the bucket, and the key

  1. Create your Scaleway account. Visit Scaleway and click Sign Up. Choose the account type that fits you, such as Personal project or Corporate.

  2. Confirm your email and complete registration. Choose Sign up with email, enter your email address, and accept the terms. Open Scaleway’s confirmation email and click the validation link. Complete the requested details and click Create account.

  3. Add your billing details. Verify your phone number if requested, then enter your billing address and payment card. Follow any confirmation steps from your bank. A valid payment card is needed to order Scaleway services. See Scaleway’s account instructions.

  4. Open Object Storage. In the Scaleway console, note the selected Project — Scaleway’s name for a workspace containing your services. Keep using this same project throughout the setup. In the left menu, click Object Storage, then Create bucket.

  5. Choose the location and name. Select where you want your backups stored, such as Paris. Enter a bucket name using lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens — for example, my-company-backups-2026. If the name is unavailable, try another.

    This is the one irreversible choice in the guide: a bucket lives in the location it was created in, and moving the data later means uploading it again. Vigilans works with any of the European locations and finds the right one by itself, so pick the one nearest you.

  6. Set the bucket options. Use these settings:

    SettingWhat to choose
    VisibilityPrivate
    Enable bucket encryptionLeave unchecked
    Enable bucket versioningLeave unchecked
    Enable object lockLeave unchecked

  7. Create the bucket. If asked for a use case, choose the option that best matches backups. Click Create bucket. These options follow Scaleway’s bucket creation instructions.

    Vigilans encrypts every file on your Mac before it is uploaded, so bucket encryption would only encrypt ciphertext a second time. Versioning and object lock keep copies your backup program believes it deleted — they add to the bill and get in the way of removing old snapshots.

  8. Save the bucket details. Record the bucket name, project, and region. Your backup software may also ask for an endpoint, which is the address it connects to. For Paris, the region is fr-par and the endpoint is https://s3.fr-par.scw.cloud. Other locations have different addresses; see Scaleway’s endpoint list.

    Vigilans asks only for the bucket name and the two keys below. It works out the region and the endpoint on its own.

  9. Create an identity for your backup software. Open the top-right menu and select IAM & API keys. This is where Scaleway manages access. Open Applications, click Create application, and name it backup-software. Finish creating it. Here, “application” simply means an identity for your backup program; there is nothing to install.

  10. Give that identity permission to use storage. Open Policies and click Create policy. Name it backup-storage-access. For principal — the identity receiving access — select the backup-software application.

  11. Choose where the permission applies. Click Add rules, select Access to resources, and choose only the project containing your bucket. Click Validate. Select ObjectStorageFullAccess, confirm the rule, and click Create policy. This permits reading, uploading, and deleting storage data throughout that project. Permissions may take up to five minutes to apply. See Scaleway’s permission setup and permission descriptions.

  12. Create the API key. Still under IAM & API keys, open API keys and click Generate API key. An API key acts like login details for your backup software.

  13. Fill in the key’s settings. For bearer, select backup-software. Add a description such as “Backup connection.” Choose an expiry period; Never avoids a scheduled expiry, while a dated key must be replaced before that date. For Object Storage, select Yes, set up preferred Project, then choose the project containing your bucket.

  14. Generate and save the key. Click Generate API key. Save both the access key and the secret key in a password manager before closing the window. Scaleway shows the secret key only once. These are the two values your backup software will use to connect. See Scaleway’s API key instructions.

Back in Vigilans

Open Vigilans and return to Connect your storage. Paste the bucket name, the access key, and the secret key. Vigilans checks them while you type, finds the region by looking for your bucket, and saves nothing until it has proved the repository really works — a typo costs you a retry, not a broken setup.

If the keys are rejected, the policy from steps 10 and 11 may not have taken effect yet (give it five minutes), or the key was issued in a different project than the bucket. If the bucket cannot be found, check the name character by character: from the outside, a bucket in another project or another region is indistinguishable from one that does not exist.

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