
How to allow direct file uploads from JavaScript to Amazon S3 signed by Python - philfreo
http://philfreo.com/blog/how-to-allow-direct-file-uploads-from-javascript-to-amazon-s3-signed-by-python/
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theatraine
Does anyone know if the same thing is possible for Azure Blob Storage? I don't
believe it is now, due to the Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) limitations
of Azure ([http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-
US/windowsazureda...](http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-
US/windowsazuredata/thread/628bb3eb-f96c-479b-9040-e9ecaf45bac9/)), but I'd
like to double check.

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smarx
I guess it's redundant for me to reply here and say no, since I'm the one
saying that on the forum thread you link to also. :-)

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JuDue
But does this mean Javascript is talking to your server rather than S3?

Because the beauty of filepicker is that a user is not locking up one of your
processes while they spend minutes uploading a file.

Especially important on Heroku, for example. Though I'm sure a self hosted
node server could fare better, I'd sooner stick it out with Filepicker.

~~~
philfreo
No... the file goes directly to S3 from the browser. Your server is only
pinged with the _name_ of the file so the upload can be signed.

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borgopants
Too true about your problems with Filepicker. It put me off using them for
even small scale projects.

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JuDue
So any more details about the issues at Filepicker?

Can't see any stories on HN

An outage is expected on services, even self-made ones like this.

~~~
brettcvz
We've been talking with the Close.io folks directly, but you may have
experienced some slowness this weekend due to increased load. We're rolling
out a new architecture soon that should address the issue for the next order
of magnitude.

Regarding the response issue mentioned, we had a bug where we would not return
the S3 key properly for a specific code path. The bug has since been patched
and pushed to production.

~~~
JuDue
Thanks for that Brett

I'd still prefer a service like Filepicker over running my own service.

However would of been good to see a blog or twitter update on these issues....
I might of missed something, but so far not able to see anything of the sort?

Does Filepicker have a Status page? Like Herokus? Cannot see anything on your
homepage.

Everyone expects outages and such. But seeing the acknowledgement and plans
for improvement helps!

(Congrats on the service... I'm still choosing you guys!)

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lttlrck
How is it 'direct' if there is an intermediary?

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fomojola
It isn't an intermediary: you get a signature from your server (no actual file
data sent) and then you use S3's support for direct browser uploads to send
the actual file data.

One additional point to note: this has been possible since 2008 (see
<http://aws.amazon.com/articles/1434>) and strictly speaking doesn't need
CORS. If you use a hidden FORM element that targets a hidden iframe you can do
this without needing a browser that supports CORS: you do lose the upload
progress information, however.

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bas
Very cool. This will be really useful.

