[Last updated: January 2021] In a previous post, we compared the advantages and disadvantages of using Amazon S3 and local storage as file storage system for JSCAPE MFT Server. For those who want to try storing their file transfer server end user files on Amazon S3, this post is for you.
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Before we begin, let me show you first what it is we're setting up here. If you still need more information or want to know the motivations behind this particular set up, read the blog post we referred to earlier.
Alright. See that folder we've highlighted below? While most folders of your web file transfer service might simply map to folders in your server's local file system, which in turn reside in a storage device directly attached to your server, that folder actually maps to a folder in a bucket in the Amazon S3 cloud.
So, if we upload files to this folder, ...
... those files will be sent to the S3 folder instead of being stored in a storage device directly attached to the server.
Let's now go through the steps to achieve this.
First, you'll need to have an Amazon S3 bucket and a folder inside it. Take note of the names of the bucket and the folder, as you'll need those later.
Next, launch your JSCAPE MFT Server manager and navigate to the Network Storage page. Click the Add button.
After that, select the Amazon S3 protocol and then click OK.
You'll then need to give this network storage a name (let's say 'ns-s3').
Select 'Use credentials' and then enter your Amazon S3 username or access key and its corresponding password or secret key. Also select the Region your S3 bucket is associated with. It's basically the region selected in your S3 console when you created that S3 bucket.
You also need to specify the path of your remote directory. This is just the name of the bucket (which in our case is 'bucketjv01'), followed by a forward slash, and then the name of the folder (which in this case is 'folder1').
You may click the Test Server button to test the connection to Amazon S3.
If everything goes well, click the OK button.
You should now see your newly created Amazon S3 network storage object.
Now that we have our S3 network storage, the next step would be to map this to a virtual path. So, in JSCAPE MFT Server, you can map that to a group's virtual path, a user template's virtual path, or a specific user's virtual path. Let's just do the latter.
Go to the Users module, select an existing user, and then click the Edit button.
Go to the Paths tab. Let's now create a new virtual path for this user by clicking the Add button.
Let's assign a name to this virtual path, say, '/files_in_s3'.
Select Network Storage and then select the network storage we created earlier.
Click OK to proceed.
You should now see your newly created virtual path, which points to an Amazon S3 folder.
You can now click OK to finalize the process.
That's it. Now you know how to use Amazon S3 as a file storage system for JSCAPE MFT Server.
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