django-database-files

django-database-files is a storage system for Django that stores uploaded files in the database.

BIG SCARY WARNING: It is generally a bad idea to serve static files from Django, but there are some valid use cases. If your Django app is behind a caching reverse proxy and you need to scale your application servers, it may be simpler to store files in the database instead of using a distributed filesystem.

Requires:

• Django 1.1
• For encryption, PyCrypt

Supports the new file storage methods in Django 1.3

Installation

$ python setup.py install

Usage

In settings.py, add database_files to your INSTALLED_APPS and add this line:

DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'database_files.storage.DatabaseStorage'

The upload_to argument is used to construct a unique identifier for the file and django-database-files will act as a normal filesystem when seen from Django, including renaming of identical files.

All your FileField and ImageField files will now be stored in the database.

Compression

If DATABASE_FILES_COMPRESSION or the DatabaseStorage optional parameter compression is set to True, the files are compressed using zlib. To avoid compressing certain file types, you can provide a DATABASE_FILES_COMPRESSION_EXCLUDE setting with a list of file types not to compress. The default settings are

DATABASE_FILES_COMPRESSION = False
DATABASE_FILES_COMPRESSION_EXCLUDE = ("zip", "gz", "rar", "jpg", "jpeg", "gif", "png", "mpg", "mpeg", "qt", "avi", "mov", "mkv")

Encryption

If DATABASE_FILES_ENCRYPTION or the DatabaseStorage optional parameter encryption is set to True, the files are encrypted using AES and your DATABASE_FILES_SECRET_KEY that defaults to your ´´SECRET_KEY´´.

DATABASE_FILES_ENCRYPTION = False
DATABASE_FILES_SECRET_KEY = SECRET_KEY

Caching

If DATABASE_FILES_CACHE is set, the DatabaseStorage will use the cache provided in the CACHE_BACKEND to cache file content to avoid hitting the database on each file request. Files will still be served through django which is inherently much slower than using your webserver so you still shouldn't serve static files this way. Also note that the files are cached encrypted and zipped if those options are used. If this is not the desired behaviour, set DATABASE_FILES_CACHE_UNENCRYPTED to True to gain some performance.

DATABASE_FILES_CACHE = False
DATABASE_FILES_CACHE_UNENCRYPTED = False

Troubleshooting

If you get the error message OperationalError: (1153, "Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytes") this means that the file is larger than what your mysql server accepts (usually 1 MB). This can be resolved by setting the max_allowed_packet setting in your my.cnf file to a higher number and by sanitizing your file upload handling to discard files larger than that size. Database storage is probably not meant for huge media files!