Storing user files in laravel

[TGDesigns]

Hi all!

Long time no post! Hope everyone who reads this is doing ok and keeping safe!

I have a bit of a dilemma, I'm using laravel to make a simple stock management system and im struggling with the logistics of storing user files, I want them to be accessible via url but the person logged in should only be able to see their product photos. Any suggestions on how to achieve this? Currently when a new product is created im saving it in "public/product_photos/{{UserID}}/{{ProductID}}" but that means someone could just switch out the id's and get a direct url to another users photo!

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Adam]

Paging @Gummibeer. 😄

 

[TGDesigns]

Paging @Gummibeer. 😄

Thinking about it its not really specific to laravel but more of a storage logistics problem

 

[Adam]

You could rename the file to a random, unguessable string and store that in the database for serving to the user? This would be the simplest way assuming that the photos weren't particularly sensitive and didn't need real authentication.

 

[TGDesigns]

You could rename the file to a random, unguessable string and store that in the database for serving to the user? This would be the simplest way assuming that the photos weren't particularly sensitive and didn't need real authentication.

Yeah that makes sense, they arent sensitive at all its more I just didnt want one user harvesting all of another users product photos!

 

[Gummibeer]

Adams idea is right/the simplest.
Using random tokens or UUIDs is the most common strategy for files the world won't burn if someone unauthorized access them.

#selfMarketing

Astrotomic/laravel-eloquent-uuid

Contribute to Astrotomic/laravel-eloquent-uuid development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

This will a simple trait that adds a UUID to your model.

If these files are payment protected or something you should use a middleware/controller in between. Because no static delivery method is really secure.
The controller will also allow you to use blob storage (S3) or similar to prevent filling your server disk.
But it will increase the workload on your app/php.

Another, more fancy, approach would be to deliver directly from blob storage and use single use access tokens to load the file directly from blob storage without going through your server.

 

[TGDesigns]

Adams idea is right/the simplest.
Using random tokens or UUIDs is the most common strategy for files the world won't burn if someone unauthorized access them.

#selfMarketing

Astrotomic/laravel-eloquent-uuid

Contribute to Astrotomic/laravel-eloquent-uuid development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

This will a simple trait that adds a UUID to your model.

If these files are payment protected or something you should use a middleware/controller in between. Because no static delivery method is really secure.
The controller will also allow you to use blob storage (S3) or similar to prevent filling your server disk.
But it will increase the workload on your app/php.

Another, more fancy, approach would be to deliver directly from blob storage and use single use access tokens to load the file directly from blob storage without going through your server.

Just so I understand correctly each image is assigned a random uuid and then that is used as the filename and stored in the DB? Does this sort of system work when I need multiple images associated with one product? Could I have a random string as a folder and then multiple images with human readable filenames stored within the folder? Sorry if it should be simple, first time ive worked with files!

 

[Gummibeer]

PS: if you don't have a perfect monitoring and don't fear to get a wake-up call at 2am I HIGHLY recommend you to never store user files on the server disk.
Blob storage is much cheaper, you can use a CDN infront of it and it scales endless.
So even a user with 10.000 products and TIFF images won't kill your server over night. 😉

 

[Gummibeer]

Just so I understand correctly each image is assigned a random uuid and then that is used as the filename and stored in the DB? Does this sort of system work when I need multiple images associated with one product? Could I have a random string as a folder and then multiple images with human readable filenames stored within the folder? Sorry if it should be simple, first time ive worked with files!

Both works. In all apps we use files we have a UUID on the main model and a morphable media/file table which also contains a UUID.
The path/URL looks like:

{model_class}/{model_uuid}/{file_uuid}.{ext}
product/1234/abcd.jpg

But the file table contains all relevant information: mimetype, size, original filename and what else you need.

 

[Gummibeer]

The package itself will be over-scaled for your usecase - except you want to process the images and create defined versions:

spatie/laravel-medialibrary

Associate files with Eloquent models. Contribute to spatie/laravel-medialibrary development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

But the migration gives you an idea how our media/file models look like:

spatie/laravel-medialibrary

Associate files with Eloquent models. Contribute to spatie/laravel-medialibrary development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Schema::create('files', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->bigIncrements('id');
    $table->morphs('model');
    $table->uuid('uuid')->nullable();
    $table->string('collection_name');
    $table->string('file_name');
    $table->string('mime_type')->nullable();
    $table->string('disk');
    $table->unsignedBigInteger('size');
    $table->nullableTimestamps();
});

 

[TGDesigns]

Both works. In all apps we use files we have a UUID on the main model and a morphable media/file table which also contains a UUID.
The path/URL looks like:

{model_class}/{model_uuid}/{file_uuid}.{ext}
product/1234/abcd.jpg

But the file table contains all relevant information: mimetype, size, original filename and what else you need.

Ok thanks for the information! I think im gonna go with something like this http://localhost/storage/{userID}/product_images/2dc24d7a-27db-4a25-9132-fd0ae3ad6dc9/Main_image.jpg

 

[TGDesigns]

Oh snap I didnt see your last message I shall give those packages a read!