Technically this is strickly neither an UMP question or an Umbraco question but...
I need to set up some ftp storage space for my client who are printers, they simply want to offer some private space so that their clients can ftp/send them in artwork.
The idea being that we can then use Universal Media Picker in umbraco to pick the artwork and assign it to a job.
It's the cloud part I'm struggling with, I just need a service what comes with some type of control panel or ftp type client so that my client (the printers) can set up individual folders with usernames / passwords to give to their clients. Their clients can then upload the artwork directly into their individual folders.
Sounds simple, I signed up to Amazon S3 but got a little lost...
I'd say it sounds like Amazon would be the best (most scalable) solution, unfortunatley I don't know much about the setup (Maybe Sitereactor can help), but after a quick search, I guess the publisher could setup the Amazon account, and the clients could use something like http://s3browser.com/ to upload files. As long as you have root access, you should be able to pick the files using UMP.
Another option could even be something like dropbox? The publisher could create shared folders for each client allowing them to easily drop files into a folder and have them uploaded. You could then use the UMP dropbox provider to access the publishers root account, looking through all the folders (Worth noting in UMP when using Dropbox though is that it has to proxy the file via the API as dropbox doesn't allow direct linking to files that aren't in the public folder).
If you had FTP on your server, you could use that too, and just use the FileSystem UMP provider?
There are a few options, I guess it's just security / scalability / ease of upload that is the question (and of course, how to set them up).
If you are using Amazon S3 then you need to know that the concept of folders doesn't really exist in the API. Through the AWS console its pretty easy to create a bucket and then folders within the bucket, but please note that the folder will only be represented as a full path (/myfolder/myfile.jpg). If you setup UMP with the S3 provider and point it to a bucket with files and folders, which you created through the console you will see what I mean (in the next update of the provider we will however showing folders).
That being said, if you upload a file with a filename like customername/file.jpg then the "customername"-part should be represented as a folder in the bucket. So with regards to your question I believe you could simply prefix the file that the users are uploading with their name or email and put a splash inbetween to have the file placed in a unique folder (or rather a path). So when the file is uploaded your client will be able to pick the file from S3 using UMP.
If the users of the site when to get a username and password I would suggest you create an extranet of some sort (using members) to have the users login and get access to an upload form.
I hope you can make some sense out of the above, as its a little hard to explain :-S
"It's the cloud part I'm struggling with, I just need a service what
comes with some type of control panel or ftp type client so that my
client (the printers) can set up individual folders with usernames /
passwords to give to their clients. Their clients can then upload the
artwork directly into their individual folders."
My suggestion is to simply use the Member section, so the printers simply create an account for a user/client through Umbraco. That account (name) will simply be the path/folder of the uploaded files from that user. All you would need to do is to create a password protected page, which users the Member login credentials and then wire up the upload-form to S3, which should be fairly simple to do.
Amazon S3, Cloud Files or Azure?
Hi,
Technically this is strickly neither an UMP question or an Umbraco question but...
I need to set up some ftp storage space for my client who are printers, they simply want to offer some private space so that their clients can ftp/send them in artwork.
The idea being that we can then use Universal Media Picker in umbraco to pick the artwork and assign it to a job.
It's the cloud part I'm struggling with, I just need a service what comes with some type of control panel or ftp type client so that my client (the printers) can set up individual folders with usernames / passwords to give to their clients. Their clients can then upload the artwork directly into their individual folders.
Sounds simple, I signed up to Amazon S3 but got a little lost...
Any tips appreciated
Cheers
Rich
Hey Rich,
I'd say it sounds like Amazon would be the best (most scalable) solution, unfortunatley I don't know much about the setup (Maybe Sitereactor can help), but after a quick search, I guess the publisher could setup the Amazon account, and the clients could use something like http://s3browser.com/ to upload files. As long as you have root access, you should be able to pick the files using UMP.
Another option could even be something like dropbox? The publisher could create shared folders for each client allowing them to easily drop files into a folder and have them uploaded. You could then use the UMP dropbox provider to access the publishers root account, looking through all the folders (Worth noting in UMP when using Dropbox though is that it has to proxy the file via the API as dropbox doesn't allow direct linking to files that aren't in the public folder).
If you had FTP on your server, you could use that too, and just use the FileSystem UMP provider?
There are a few options, I guess it's just security / scalability / ease of upload that is the question (and of course, how to set them up).
Matt
Hi Rich,
If you are using Amazon S3 then you need to know that the concept of folders doesn't really exist in the API. Through the AWS console its pretty easy to create a bucket and then folders within the bucket, but please note that the folder will only be represented as a full path (/myfolder/myfile.jpg). If you setup UMP with the S3 provider and point it to a bucket with files and folders, which you created through the console you will see what I mean (in the next update of the provider we will however showing folders).
That being said, if you upload a file with a filename like customername/file.jpg then the "customername"-part should be represented as a folder in the bucket. So with regards to your question I believe you could simply prefix the file that the users are uploading with their name or email and put a splash inbetween to have the file placed in a unique folder (or rather a path).
So when the file is uploaded your client will be able to pick the file from S3 using UMP.
If the users of the site when to get a username and password I would suggest you create an extranet of some sort (using members) to have the users login and get access to an upload form.
I hope you can make some sense out of the above, as its a little hard to explain :-S
- Morten
To elaborate on this part:
"It's the cloud part I'm struggling with, I just need a service what comes with some type of control panel or ftp type client so that my client (the printers) can set up individual folders with usernames / passwords to give to their clients. Their clients can then upload the artwork directly into their individual folders."
My suggestion is to simply use the Member section, so the printers simply create an account for a user/client through Umbraco. That account (name) will simply be the path/folder of the uploaded files from that user.
All you would need to do is to create a password protected page, which users the Member login credentials and then wire up the upload-form to S3, which should be fairly simple to do.
- Morten
Hi Morten, Matt,
Sorry for not getting back to you guys earlier.
I ended up using our FTP on your server, and the FileSystem UMP provider.
Many thanks for a(nother) fantastic package!
Rich
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