I'm using Amazon S3 to store some mp3 files.
My web application, uses the Soundmanager2 javascript library to load the files from the Amazon bucket, and play them to users.
When the first user clicks on an mp3, soundmanager starts playing the file, and as intended, caches the rest of the song as it is being played.
Problem is, if a second user clicks on the same mp3, he must wait until the first user caches the whole song, which is unacceptable for my website.
I understand that Amazon S3 somehow 'streams' the file exclusively to the first request. Is there a way to be able to use that file simultaneously, i.e. users be able to play the same mp3's at the same time?
Also, would the CloudFront functionality solve this issue?
Thank you for your help!
Alex
(By the way, my application is built on Ruby on Rails 3, and hosted on Heroku)
There is no limitation in S3 that restricts simultaneous downloads of a single object.
I would suggest that you use a tool, like Charles, to inspect the HTTP requests and see if another service is causing the second client's request to be delayed.
Related
Let's say I have a use case where users can buy mp3 files inside an app. The objects are stored in GCP Cloud Storage . What is the best practice to deliver those objects only to the users that purchased the files?
After researching the topic I came up with three solutions:
Client calls a REST (e.g. one running inside App Engine) service. This service downloads the files from Cloud Storage and then sends them back to the client.
Instead of sending the files via the REST call, I could send the download URL (from Cloud Storage) to the client. This would be more cost efficient, however this sounds like a security concern to me as anyone who simply monitors his network could capture the URL.
Creating a (time-limited) signed url to allow the user the download
Obviously a permission check would have to happen first, e.g. a database that contains if user X purchased mp3 Y.
This problem could also be applied to Azure Blob Storage or AWS S3...
In your use case, you have a constant:
You need a backend to authenticate the user (for example Authentication performed with Cloud Identity Platform and hosted on App Engine or Cloud Run
You need to check the list of MP3 that it has bought (stored in Firestore for example)
And then, you need to allow him to download the file. On this last point I recommend you to generated a signedURL. Download URL exists only in Firebase area (maybe your project is a firebase projet?) but it's the same thing than signerURL. Finally I don't recommend you the #1 proposal. It will work, but in case of long download (because network is poor), the connexion will be interrupted after 60 seconds. And this will keep your AppEngine up for nothing (and you will pay for this...).
I have a large quantity of videos on my Vimeo account that I would like to migrate to my AWS S3 account.
Rather than go through the time consuming process of downloading from Vimeo to my local machine then uploading from my local machine to S3, is there a way where I can do a direct transfer from Vimeo to S3?
If possible, I would want to create a script to iterate through each video via Vimeo API and set up the path to where it would go into S3 then initiate a direct transfer. Any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated!
If you have a PRO account or higher, you can use the API to get download links for videos on your account, including download links for the original source file. Those download file links should be able to be used for importing into S3. Note that the links provided via the Vimeo API are expiring HTTP 302 redirects to the video file resource, so make sure you take note of the expiration time also provided in the response.
Download links are returned with the rest of a video's metadata, so I suggest using the fields parameter to only return the metadata needed.
http://developer.vimeo.com/api/common-formats#json-filter
https://developer.vimeo.com/api/reference/videos#GET/users/{user_id}/videos
I am creating a web service that mashes up Dropbox, Soundcloud and Wordpress.
I need a callback when user places a file in his Dropbox folder so that I can update the browser user interface. Since it is possible to ask for a download link locally before a file is completely synced, I naturally expect it to be possible to get a callback when file sync has started on a file-by-file basis.
However according to what I experienced /delta only shows files that have finished syncing.
Is there a way to know when file sync starts? If it is not possible via Core API, could it be possible with a small client applet (java or something)?
The Dropbox API doesn't currently expose any notion of a pending upload or file sync status. It can only return information about files that have finished uploading.
Likewise, even with a client app running on the same OS, there currently isn't an interface for communicating with the official Dropbox desktop client to get this information.
We are developing a mobile app using Parse as our BAAS solution but using Amazon S3 for storage of our media files. All of our users upload media files into their own individual folders inside of our app's bucket. As the user uploads media files we update their records in Parse so it knows where to download the files. That's the easy part.
I've spent quite a bit of time researching the different policies for S3 buckets and I am trying to get a grip on the proper way to ensure the security of the content uploaded. If you do all of your work with DynamoDB or SimpleDB then it's easy because you're essentially adjusting your ACLs with the IAM accounts and whatnot. If you use Amazon Cognito it's also easy because authentication happens through Google, Facebook or Amazon accounts. In my case I am using Parse to authenticate users which cannot speak to Amazon directly.
My goal is that only the currently logged in Parse user with ID #1234567 can access their own 1234567 folder and files (as well as any other user given permission by this person for collaboration). Here is a post similar to what I'm trying to accomplish: amazon S3 bucket policy - restricting access by referer BUT not restricting if urls are generated via query string authentication
...but how do I accomplish this with the current user's ID number?
Even better question is whether that post mentioned above is best practice or should I instead be looking at creating an EC2 server to handle access to these files? Should I be looking at CloudFront to serve private content? Or is there another method that works better for what I am trying to accomplish? I am going in circles and my head is spinning.
Thanks to whoever can help straighten me out.
Well since Parse is being shut down I am migrating to another service. This question is no longer relevant.
I am creating a mobile app through Phonegap as the client and using Rails as the back-end. I am deploying my app to Heroku and am planning to use S3 to store the image files, because that is what is recommended from my various readings online.
I was wondering how could the Rails controller be used to send images back from Ajax requests from Phonegap.
I am not sure how to write the back-end API code to send images to requests.
I also read that using the send_file method without x-send_file enabled will slow down the server because sending the image would block other request until it is done.
Please let me know if you have any insights.
You could use redirects to the S3 assets here, then your browser is just getting the image directly, and not holding up one of your server processes while the browser slowly downloads the images.
If you need to keep your images private you can use the signed URL feature of S3 to only give signed and time limited URL's to the appropriate users. (See my commit to Paperclip: https://github.com/thoughtbot/paperclip/pull/292)