Feature request: Amazon S3 support?

raffychan

Hi, is there a way to integrate Amazon S3 with fileupload?
Being able to host uploaded files on S3 would prevent from running into storage/bandwidth limit issues, especially on shared hosting plans.
I hope you'll consider this.
Regards

nascode

Yes we need this too, to be able to deploy on paas without writable storage.

vrijvlinder

So what you want it to be able to upload a file to a cloud or data storage service using the Vanilla forum file upload plugin ?

Seems like a lot to ask from a simple plugin but ...Some people here are magicians so who knows... You could put a tinypic widget on your forum and have people upload there, I mean if the content is not valuable. But using an api from such service is the closest thing I think you are going to get.

nascode

@vrijvlinder Thank you for your suggestion, but FileUpload plugin is so common, it is like a default plugin for Vanilla Forum - and my users using it comfortably.

Since this is about FileUpload suggestion, i suggest maybe we could configure the plugin to enable service like Amazon S3

vrijvlinder

Do you understand how the plugin works? Maybe you can change the Local Path to a Remote path if it were that simple. You could try it of course. But then there is the authentication issue. What you need is to make a plugin that uploads to where you want. And also can interface with the database to access the comments and discussions tables. Or at the very least gives you a url to paste the image into the post. Hence the tiny pic upload widget... I am not sure it a feature that is very much in demand although it would be a good idea to have an interface with other services like ubuntu etc.

/**
    * Return path to upload folder.
    *
    * @return string Path to upload folder.
    */
   public static function PathUploads() {
      if (defined('PATH_LOCAL_UPLOADS'))
         return PATH_LOCAL_UPLOADS;
      else
         return PATH_UPLOADS;
   }

Maybe someone else has some better ideas good luck in your quest

businessdad

@vrijvlinder said:
So what you want it to be able to upload a file to a cloud or data storage service using the Vanilla forum file upload plugin ?

Seems like a lot to ask from a simple plugin but ...

Plugins are very powerful, actually, and they could easily handle this. Vanilla is surprisingly flexible.

To anyone interested, uploading to S3 would require a few steps:

• Restructure FileUpload to allow different destinations. Modifying it to allow local storage and one remote destination (in this case, S3) would take the same effort of allowing local storage and X remote destinations.
• Implement upload to S3.
• Restructure Settings page and add the section for for S3 settings and to allow Admins to choose where the files should be uploaded.
• Alter the plugin so that it returns the URL of the file depending on where it was uploaded. Of course, if a file was uploaded to S3, it will "live" there even if Admins will change their mind and start uploading files locally, or to another cloud host.

It would definitely require some testing, but it would be interesting to see how it comes out.

vrijvlinder

well ,looks like you have a new project !!

businessdad

@vrijvlinder said:
well ,looks like you have a new project !!

LOL! My plate is already quite full, I would say. Between Badges (the one that I started implementing a few months ago), Rankings, Reactions and Backup, there's a lot of work to do!

vrijvlinder

It seems Amazon S3 also offers hosting, maybe that or a VPS would be the answer for their bandwidth and storage concern.

businessdad

@vrijvlinder said:
It seems Amazon S3 also offers hosting, maybe that or a VPS would be the answer for their bandwidth and storage concern.

+1 for that. I reckon that they would like to use S3 only for the files to get the best of both worlds: cheap shared hosting for the main site (Amazon VPS are dearer) and cheap file storage using S3 (it's much cheaper than a whole VPS, especially considering that the latter doesn't include persistent storage, which has to be purchased separately).

vrijvlinder

bottom line? mula, greenback, black gold ... blood bank or MIT education?

businessdad

@vrijvlinder said:
bottom line? mula, greenback, black gold ... blood bank or MIT education?

Sorry, I dont' get this one. In my language, "mula" means something else, but it's NSFW and I don't think it's the same.

vrijvlinder

@businessdad lol mula is, in this case number one on that list lmao #6 is news to me ...maybe that is what it means in your language ? if so triple lol

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mula

zeldatron

I'm in the process of doing this, haven't had much success yet but if I get it working, I'll publish the plugin for everyone to use.