Introduction

MediaLit is a Node.js based app to store, convert and optimise the media files on any AWS S3 compatible storage.

Setting up correct access on AWS S3 bucket

Before you start uploading to your bucket, make sure you have set up the correct access on your S3 bucket.

1. Without Cloudfront

2. With Cloudfront

Using Cloudfront

If you need to use a Cloudfront CDN, you can enable it in the app, by setting up the following values in your .env file.

USE_CLOUDFRONT=true
CLOUDFRONT_ENDPOINT=CLOUDFRONT_DISTRIBUTION_NAME
CLOUDFRONT_PRIVATE_KEY="PRIVATE_KEY"
CLOUDFRONT_KEY_PAIR_ID=KEY_PAIR_ID

We assume that since you are using Cloudfront, you have locked down your bucket from public access. Therefore, all the files uploaded to the bucket will have ACL set to private i.e. they will require signed URLs in order to access them.

Generating a key pair

Use the following commands to generate a key pair to be used above.

openssl genrsa -out private_key.pem 2048
openssl rsa -pubout -in private_key.pem -out public_key.pem

Enable trust proxy

This app is based on Express which cannot work reliably when it is behind a proxy. For example, it cannot detect if it behind a proxy.

Hence, we need to enable it on our own. To do that, set the following environment variable.

ENABLE_TRUST_PROXY=true

Creating a local user

In order to interact with the API, you need to have an API key. To create one, execute the following command.

docker exec <container_id | container_name> node /app/apps/api/dist/scripts/create-local-user.js <email>

After running the above command, you will get an API key which you can use to interact with the app.

You can only run this script once.

CAUTION: Keep the generated API key confidential as anyone could be able to store files on your instance.

Development

We build on Linux based systems. Hence the instructions are for those system only. If you are on Windows, we recommend using WSL.

Install the utilities

sudo apt install ffmpeg webp

Install dependencies

pnpm install

Build packages

pnpm --filter=@medialit/images build
pnpm --filter=@medialit/thumbnail build

Run the service

pnpm --filter=@medialit/api dev

Publishing a new version

pnpm exec changeset