Amazon S3 cloud storage extension

[2600]

Is there an extension for 3.1.x that can send attachments to Amazon S3?

I have found the following:

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=814955

https://www.cocking.com/2013/11/01/phpb ... ification/

I would love to be able to offload images to a CDN. I think others might be interested in such an extension as well.

Thanks for your help.

[2600]

No interest? Here's an example being used with WordPress. https://wordpress.org/plugins/amazon-s3-and-cloudfront/

[Swanny]

Is there an extension for 3.1.x that can send attachments to Amazon S3?... I would love to be able to offload images to a CDN. I think others might be interested in such an extension as well.

I found S3/CloudFront to be not so user friendly to setup. I now use CloudFlare, you might want to consider that if you're mainly looking for a CDN.

[2600]

I do use CF. What I would like to use is Amazon S3 to offload attachments to the cloud. But I need an extension to do that. There was a mod, and I contacted the mod author to find out if he could translate to an extension but haven't heard a peep.

[Senky]

We are all waiting for this ticket to be coded and merged. Currently, there is so much code split to various files, that a huge amount of events would be required to achieve such feature.

[2600]

Ah, I see. Well, LOL I don't see this being a feature anytime soon then. Would be nice. Is there anyway I can be of help to get this moving? I don't know code, but perhaps I can bug them every week or something?

I would really like the ability to offload attachments to Amazon S3. WordPress can do it, phpBB should be able to do it too!

Another feature is 2FA. XenForo has it and being able to use Authy or Google Auth would be a VERY nice feature. I did ask for an extension.

[austin881]

In case anyone is still looking for something like this, I've created a phpBB extension that uploads attachments to S3. I'd love some feedback on it.

[Swanny]

I do use CF. What I would like to use is Amazon S3 to offload attachments to the cloud. But I need an extension to do that...

If you use CloudFlare, it has CDN built-in, negating any need for Amazon S3. Your files are already in the cloud if you're using CloudFlare. See https://www.cloudflare.com/features-cdn/

Using CloudFlare is all you need in your case. Adding in S3 just further complicates things unnecessarily. Seriously.

[2600]

No, I need the attachments served from S3. CloudFlare with my basic free service just offers a cache.

[Swanny]

No, I need the attachments served from S3. CloudFlare with my basic free service just offers a cache.

The free plan of CF includes CDN also, see https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/ for a full feature list on the free plan (scroll down and you'll see you get a TON of stuff for free).

I've used a # of different CDN solutions and CF is by far the easiest to setup & configure.

[2600]

Dude, I've used CloudFlare for two years now. I know what they offer and use their services. They DO NOT host attachments!

[Lumpy Burgertushie]

if cloudfare offers storage of files in the cloud then it will allow you to store attachments as well. cloudfare will not know or care what the files are and attachments are just files. the trick is to figure out how to have phpbb send the attachments to your cloudfare account instead of to the standard storage folder of phpbb.
just as it is to send them to S3 or anywhere else instead of the standard place.

robert

[austin881]

It is my understanding that CloudFlare does not offer storage in the cloud. CloudFlare offers a Content Delivery Network (CDN) in the cloud. By nature, CDN requires an origin, a place where the files are physically located and serve as the source of the file. The CDN communicates with the originating server to deliver any content that has not been previously cached.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think what John connor is saying is that he does not want to use the local filesystem of his phpBB application as the origin for CloudFlare, but rather he would like to actually upload the files to the S3 in the cloud.

[2600]

I use CloudfFlare. They ONLY cache content. They DO NOT host files like Amazon S3 does. Non of CloudFlare's services offer file uploading.

Yes, all I want to do is have all attachments sent to Amazon S3 and be hosted from there. Segregating your content is prudent and will help to increase page load, etc. WordPress has a few plugins to host your WordPress files from Amazon S3 as well.

All CloudFlare does is offer a reverse proxy that helps increase webpage speed by caching, Java Script and CSS optimization. They even offer a "Rocketloader" which can reduce JS down even further, but it's more experimental and in my use it's caused issues which is to be expected. For their payed option of $20/month you can use their WAF (Web Application Firewall). I also use their ASN blocks and captchas for certain countries and ASNs. So in my ASN blocks I have blocked a whole host of hosting companies from connecting to my site. Like Chopa, Softlayer, Digital Ocean, etc. I also run a script that does further blocking, SPAM catching, etc. There's no reason for a host to connect to your website. In some cases it's needed for SEO purposes. Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc are allowed of course.

CloudFlare also takes care of your DNS entries as well as offers SSL Certs. One of their features is DNSSEC and since my DNS provider Namesilo has the DNSSEC option I took advantage of it in CloudFlare and in Namesilo.

Basically, your website server sits behind CloudFlare. When you go to my forum you access one of CloudFlare's edge servers near you and delivers my forum. In fact, my host's firewall wasn't whitelisting all of CloudFlare's IP addresses so things were breaking. Notably the Visual Editor in WordPress. After I had my host rewhitelist all of CloudFlare IP addresses everything went back to normal. This was do to me connecting to the CloudFlare edge server in Denver since that's closest to me. That server was blocked by my host. But using my VPN and connecting to my site from Lisbon Portugal, I was able to see the Visual editor and the site loaded as normal. Because CloudFlare was serving my site from their edge server in Portugal or near there.

Anyway. HUGE difference between Amazon S3 and CloudFlare. Although, I think S2 is hosting from Amazon. Many sites do host from Amazon. If your using Firefox or a variant of Firefox, check out the addon IP Address and Domain Information. One click and you see the WHOIS. I can see this site hosted from the Network for Education and Research in Oregon.

EDIT-

Just want to give out a few security tips.

If you do use CloudFlare and after you throw your domain in CloudFlare, have your host change your IP address. Even if you use a shared server you can get a dedicated IP address. Shouldn't cost no more than $2 extra dollars a month. Anymore and they are ripping you off. Reason is your IP will still be out in the wild west even though you're siting behind a reverse proxy like CloudFlare. Also, delete your MX record and use a third party E-mail service. Reason is your MX record will give away your real IP address despite being behind CloudFlare. I use gmail myself, but I have read that there is a 500 E-mail limit using SMTP and that could be even less and/or they count send and receive. If my forums grew larger I would go with Namecheap's E-mail service. It's like $20/year. Though I can't vouch for Namecheap's E-mail service, I've heard good things about their DNS offerings. However, I heard even better news about Namesilo, and that is the DNS provider I use. They don't offer an E-mail service that I know of unlike Namecheap which does. Great thing about Namesilo is they offer two-factor auth for your account. Not sure if Namecheap offers 2FA or not. I'm sure they do. DO take advantage of 2FA. If someone takes a hold of your DNS account you just got owned. Don't do that.

This is just as a security precaution. sudo dork-mode off

[Swanny]

OK so you do understand Cloudflare yes they cache and not host but to me that's just fine. You must be short on hosting space or something? Maybe you use attachments for something other than simple things like images, etc.?

Have you done tests to see if there is a speed increase by storing files (attachments) on S3 versus Cloudflare (with HTTP/2)? The only reason I ask is that what you are saying was correct for years but that has changed.

Now, with HTTP/2, spreading files among different hosts/servers negates that advantage. See https://www.cloudflare.com/http2/ and https://blog.cloudflare.com/http-2-for-web-developers/

Spreading files over multiple domains or subdomains is no longer prudent with HTTP/2 and is actually discouraged.

I use RocketLoader, all I had to do was disable it for one script in the HTML (easy). I also use all the other optimization and speed enhancements possible, I'm on the $20/mo plan for almost all of my sites.