[wp-hackers] Using NFS for the media library in a large MultiSite installation

Doug Stewart zamoose at gmail.com
Thu Oct 18 20:51:40 UTC 2012


Gregory:
Can you flesh out the use case for interacting with the media outside
of WordPress? Is this a download-only sort of thing, or are they
contributing content via methods other than straight WP?

On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 4:26 PM, Cornelius, Gregory <gcorne at bu.edu> wrote:
> Fellow WP/Linux experts,
>
> I am working on a project to redo the hosting infrastructure for our
> WordPress MultiSite CMS. As part of the project, we are changing the file
> system that we are using to store media library content from AFS to NFSv3.
> We have around 1 TB of data.
>
> To help the systems staff, I am trying to get a sense of how other people
> handle file servers and permissions? In the existing production
> environment that uses AFS as the file system backing the media library, we
> have relied on the ACLs provided by the file system to give a group of
> staff members access via sFTP to the media library content. And, of
> course, the web servers also have RW access. We are trying to come up with
> a similar solution that uses NFSv3 instead. Is anyone using POSIX Default
> ACLs?
>
> We already have a solution in place so that media requests do not go
> through ms-files.php so my concerns are mostly around adding media,
> moving, and copying via scripts, sFTP, and WordPress.
>
> The application servers and files servers will be running CentOS 5 in a
> VMWare environment. We are considering:
>
> 1. Creating a group wpstatic that includes the Apache user and all staff.
> Set the mode for the media library directory to 2775 and set umask to 002
> for both Apache and the staff users. The problem with this is that the
> setgid bit can easily be stomped on.
>
> 2. Use a POSIX Default ACL that gives Apache and the staff RW access to
> the media library portion of the file system.
>
> 3. Use SSH key pairs and have the staff connect to the sFTP service using
> the same account as the web server runs under when working in the media
> library portion of the file system.
>
> The vast majority of the interactions will occur via Apache (through
> WordPress), and there are about 25 staff members.
>
> What do folks prefer? Are there any particular pitfalls that people have
> run into with NFS that I should work to avoid?
>
> Thanks,
> Gregory
>
> ---
> Gregory Cornelius
> Senior Solutions Architect
> Information Services & Technology
> Boston University
> 617.358.6499
>
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-- 
-Doug


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