How can I set paperclip's storage mechanism based on the current Rails environment? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have a rails application that has multiple models with paperclip attachments that are all uploaded to S3. This app also has a large test suite that is run quite often. The downside with this is that a ton of files are uploaded to our S3 account on every test run, making the test suite run slowly. It also slows down development a bit, and requires you to have an internet connection in order to work on the code.
Is there a reasonable way to set the paperclip storage mechanism based on the Rails environment? Ideally, our test and development environments would use the local filesystem storage, and the production environment would use S3 storage.
I'd also like to extract this logic into a shared module of some kind, since we have several models that will need this behavior. I'd like to avoid a solution like this inside of every model:
### We don't want to do this in our models...
if Rails.env.production?
has_attached_file :image, :styles => {...},
:path => "images/:uuid_partition/:uuid/:style.:extension",
:storage => :s3,
:url => ':s3_authenticated_url', # generates an expiring url
:s3_credentials => File.join(Rails.root, 'config', 's3.yml'),
:s3_permissions => 'private',
:s3_protocol => 'https'
else
has_attached_file :image, :styles => {...},
:storage => :filesystem
# Default :path and :url should be used for dev/test envs.
end
Update: The sticky part is that the attachment's :path and :url options need to differ depending on which storage system is being used.
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! :-)

Answer 1

I like Barry's suggestion better and there's nothing keeping you from setting the variable to a hash, that can then be merged with the paperclip options.
In config/environments/development.rb and test.rb set something like
PAPERCLIP_STORAGE_OPTIONS = {}
And in config/environments/production.rb
PAPERCLIP_STORAGE_OPTIONS = {:storage => :s3,
:s3_credentials => "#{Rails.root}/config/s3.yml",
:path => "/:style/:filename"}
Finally in your paperclip model:
has_attached_file :image, {
:styles => {:thumb => '50x50#', :original => '800x800>'}
}.merge(PAPERCLIP_STORAGE_OPTIONS)
Update: A similar approach was recently implemented in Paperclip for Rails 3.x apps. Environment specific settings can now be set with config.paperclip_defaults = {:storage => :s3, ...}.

Answer 2

You can set global default configuration data in the environment-specific configuration files. For example, in config/environments/production.rb:
Paperclip::Attachment.default_options.merge!({
:storage => :s3,
:bucket => 'wheresmahbucket',
:s3_credentials => {
:access_key_id => ENV['S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID'],
:secret_access_key => ENV['S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY']
}
})

Answer 3

After playing around with it for a while, I came up with a module that does what I want.
Inside app/models/shared/attachment_helper.rb:
module Shared
module AttachmentHelper
def self.included(base)
base.extend ClassMethods
end
module ClassMethods
def has_attachment(name, options = {})
# generates a string containing the singular model name and the pluralized attachment name.
# Examples: "user_avatars" or "asset_uploads" or "message_previews"
attachment_owner = self.table_name.singularize
attachment_folder = "#{attachment_owner}_#{name.to_s.pluralize}"
# we want to create a path for the upload that looks like:
# message_previews/00/11/22/001122deadbeef/thumbnail.png
attachment_path = "#{attachment_folder}/:uuid_partition/:uuid/:style.:extension"
if Rails.env.production?
options[:path] ||= attachment_path
options[:storage] ||= :s3
options[:url] ||= ':s3_authenticated_url'
options[:s3_credentials] ||= File.join(Rails.root, 'config', 's3.yml')
options[:s3_permissions] ||= 'private'
options[:s3_protocol] ||= 'https'
else
# For local Dev/Test envs, use the default filesystem, but separate the environments
# into different folders, so you can delete test files without breaking dev files.
options[:path] ||= ":rails_root/public/system/attachments/#{Rails.env}/#{attachment_path}"
options[:url] ||= "/system/attachments/#{Rails.env}/#{attachment_path}"
end
# pass things off to paperclip.
has_attached_file name, options
end
end
end
end
(Note: I'm using some custom paperclip interpolations above, like :uuid_partition, :uuid and :s3_authenticated_url. You'll need to modify things as needed for your particular application)
Now, for every model that has paperclip attachments, you just have to include this shared module, and call the has_attachment method (instead of paperclip's has_attached_file)
An example model file: app/models/user.rb:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
include Shared::AttachmentHelper
has_attachment :avatar, :styles => { :thumbnail => "100x100>" }
end
With this in place, you'll have files saved to the following locations, depending on your environment:
Development:
RAILS_ROOT + public/attachments/development/user_avatars/aa/bb/cc/aabbccddeeff/thumbnail.jpg
Test:
RAILS_ROOT + public/attachments/test/user_avatars/aa/bb/cc/aabbccddeeff/thumbnail.jpg
Production:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/your-bucket-name/user_avatars/aa/bb/cc/aabbccddeeff/thumbnail.jpg
This does exactly what I'm looking for, hopefully it'll prove useful to someone else too. :)
-John

Answer 4

How about this:
Defaults are established in application.rb. The default storage of :filesystem is used, but the configuration for s3 is initialized
Production.rb enables :s3 storage and changes the default path
Application.rb
config.paperclip_defaults =
{
:hash_secret => "LongSecretString",
:s3_protocol => "https",
:s3_credentials => "#{Rails.root}/config/aws_config.yml",
:styles => {
:original => "1024x1024>",
:large => "600x600>",
:medium => "300x300>",
:thumb => "100x100>"
}
}
Development.rb (uncomment this to try with s3 in development mode)
# config.paperclip_defaults.merge!({
# :storage => :s3,
# :bucket => "mydevelopmentbucket",
# :path => ":hash.:extension"
# })
Production.rb:
config.paperclip_defaults.merge!({
:storage => :s3,
:bucket => "myproductionbucket",
:path => ":hash.:extension"
})
In your model:
has_attached_file :avatar

Answer 5

Couldn't you just set an environment variable in production/test/development.rb?
PAPERCLIP_STORAGE_MECHANISM = :s3
Then:
has_attached_file :image, :styles => {...},
:storage => PAPERCLIP_STORAGE_MECHANISM,
# ...etc...

Answer 6

My solution is same with #runesoerensen answer:
I create a module PaperclipStorageOption in config/initializers/paperclip_storage_option.rb
The code is very simple:
module PaperclipStorageOption
module ClassMethods
def options
Rails.env.production? ? production_options : default_options
end
private
def production_options
{
storage: :dropbox,
dropbox_credentials: Rails.root.join("config/dropbox.yml")
}
end
def default_options
{}
end
end
extend ClassMethods
end
and use it in our model
has_attached_file :avatar, { :styles => { :medium => "1200x800>" } }.merge(PaperclipStorageOption.options)
Just it, hope this help

Answer 7

Use the :rails_env interpolation when you define the attachment path:
has_attached_file :attachment, :path => ":rails_root/storage/:rails_env/attachments/:id/:style/:basename.:extension"