Introduction

Even though Zope with ZODB blobs is capable of handling big file uploads, its performance is weak in comparison to Nginx upload module.

Using the latter has many advantages, e.g.:

• The upload module is native C code. It is much faster then the python based implementation.
• Long running uploads don't block Zope's thread pool for other incoming requests.

Prerequisites

Nginx delivers the uploaded files to zope by means of a shared (distributed) file system. Therefore, nginx and zope must run under the same uid (e.g. www-data) in order to avoid ACL problems during the file transfer process.

Recommendation

In order to avoid unnecessary file system IO Zope's TMPDIR should be on the same volume as Nginx's upload_store (s.a. HOWTO-Blobs-NFS.txt).

Enabling unimr.external_upload

These instructions are for Github version.

Then include it in the buildout.cfg:

[buildout]
...
parts = instance
find-links =
   http://github.com/hrz-unimr/unimr.external_upload/tarball/master#egg=unimr.external_upload
...

[instance]
...
eggs = unimr.external_upload
effective-user = www-data
...

Installation on Nginx

Here's a nginx site configuration

mysite:

# This specifies which IP and port Plone is running on.
# The default is 127.0.0.1:8080
upstream plone {
    server 127.0.0.1:8080;
}

# virtual server
server {

    listen 80;
    client_max_body_size 1000m;

    server_name www.mysite.org;

    access_log /var/log/nginx/www.mysite.org.access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/www.mysite.org.error.log;

    # Note that domain name spelling in VirtualHostBase URL matters
    # -> this is what Plone sees as the "real" HTTP request URL.
    # "Plone" in the URL is your site id (case sensitive)
    location / {
          proxy_pass http://plone/VirtualHostBase/http/localhost:8081/Plone/VirtualHostRoot/;
    }

    # Upload module section
    # Upload form should be submitted to this location. In Plone is the correct
    # location at any context "atct_edit" for ATContentTypes.
    location ~ .*/atct_edit$ {
        # Pass altered request body to this location
        upload_pass   @upload;

        # Store files to this directory
        # The directory is hashed, subdirectories 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 should exist
        upload_store /<path_to_tmpdir>/ngx_upload 1;

        # Allow uploaded files to be read/write only by user and group
        # Plone has to be run under same uid as nginx
        upload_store_access user:rw group:rw;

        # Nginx marker for upload field
        upload_set_form_field $upload_field_name.ngx_upload "$upload_field_name";

        # Set specified fields in request body
        upload_set_form_field $upload_field_name.filename "$upload_file_name";
        upload_set_form_field $upload_field_name.content_type "$upload_content_type";
        upload_set_form_field $upload_field_name.path "$upload_tmp_path";

        # Notify backend about checksum and size of a file (currently not used in Plone)
        upload_aggregate_form_field "$upload_field_name.md5" "$upload_file_md5";
        upload_aggregate_form_field "$upload_field_name.size" "$upload_file_size";

        # pass all fields except the file upload field itself
        upload_pass_form_field "^.*$";

        upload_cleanup 400-599;
    }

    # Internal location for upload handling
    location @upload {
        proxy_pass http://plone/VirtualHostBase/http/localhost:8081/Plone/VirtualHostRoot/$request_uri;
    }
}