US Patent 11693581 Authenticated stateless mount string for a distributed file system

A cluster of one or more computing devices is operably coupled to a plurality of storage devices. Each computing device in the cluster comprises a frontend and a backend. The backend comprises a plurality of buckets. Each bucket is operable to build a failure-protected stipe that spans two or more of the plurality of the storage devices. A file system comprises one or more failure-protected stipes. A client other than the one or more computing devices in the cluster is operable to access at least a portion of the file system via a stateless mount string comprising a cryptographically-signed key.