Is using AWS S3 possible?

[reesmorris]

Hi! Outline supports using S3 over the local file system for storage, but I can't seem to get it to work.

I noticed the start.sh script has a hard-coded declaration for FILE_STORAGE, which will cause it to overwrite anything in /app/data/env.sh:

export FILE_STORAGE=local

I'm guessing that this is the reason my declaration isn't working. Is this by design, or might it be something that can be removed/altered in some way to support using S3?

Thanks!

[nebulon]

This is currently by design. I guess we can make this configurable, however I am not sure how backups and thus restore will work if data storage and database may be out of sync. Has anyone any experience with this?

[girish]

It's trivial to change the package to support S3 but it does break functionality like backup/restore/clone etc. What is the motivation for moving stuff to S3? AFAIK, the notes end up in the database and not S3. So, maybe it is just the attachment files. For the upstream project, S3 makes sense, since it's a SaaS.

[reesmorris]

Thanks both for your responses! For me, it's primarily cost-related. Object storage like S3 is typically cheaper than block storage, so being able to offset costs by utilising S3 (even just for attachments) would be beneficial, as it would save space for files that must be stored in the volume.

[jdaviescoates]

@girish said in Is using AWS S3 possible?:

It's trivial to change the package to support S3

+1 for doing that.

Makes sense to be able to do it if you want to. And I guess it's just a bit like how S3 storage is already possible for media storage for Pixelfed, Peertube, Mastodon etc.

[girish]

I am not convinced there is cost benefit to be had by moving to S3 here. Unless you have 100GB of attachments or something. On Hetzner, 20GB is less than a EUR a month. S3 also costs money...

Anyway, it's not my place to decide about costs. I have adjusted the latest package to make the storage configurable.