You can run these commands from the proxy server or any server that has access to the Identity Service. Make sure that your credentials are set up correctly in the openrc.sh file and source it: $ source openrc.sh Run the following swift command: $ swift stat Account: AUTH_11b9758b7049476d9b48f7a91ea11493 Containers: 0 Objects: 0 Bytes: 0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Timestamp: 1381434243.83760 X-Trans-Id: txdcdd594565214fb4a2d33-0052570383 X-Put-Timestamp: 1381434243.83760 Run the following swift commands to upload files to a container. Create the test.txt and test2.txt test files locally if needed. $ swift upload myfiles test.txt $ swift upload myfiles test2.txt Run the following swift command to download all files from the myfiles container: $ swift download myfiles test2.txt [headers 0.267s, total 0.267s, 0.000s MB/s] test.txt [headers 0.271s, total 0.271s, 0.000s MB/s]