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Symfony 5: The Fast Track is the best book to learn modern Symfony development, from zero to production. +300 pages showcasing Symfony with Docker, APIs, queues & async tasks, Webpack, SPAs, etc.

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Network Storage

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Network Storage

The network storage service provides a file store and enables a new kind of mount that can be shared between different application containers.

To use it in your project, add it to .symfony/services.yaml:

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files:
    type: network-storage:1.0
    disk: 256

And wire it in .symfony.cloud.yaml:

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mounts:
    '/var': { source: local, source_path: var }
    '/public/uploads': { source: service, service: files, source_path: uploads }

The public/uploads directory can now be read from and written to as usual and several containers can access this directory and share the same files. The var directory however stays “local” and will not be shared between different containers.

Note

You do not need to add a relationship to point to the files service. This is handled automatically by SymfonyCloud.

Note

There is a small performance impact for using a network mount over a local mount, but in most cases it should not be noticeable. Please note that high-volume sequential file creation may experience a more significant performance impact.

How can I migrate a Local Storage to a Network Storage?

There is no automated way of transferring data from one storage type to another. The process consists in moving files around.

Suppose you have this mount configuration and want to move to a network storage mount:

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mounts:
    '/var': { source: local, source_path: var }
    '/public/uploads': { source: local, source_path: uploads }

The following steps will do so with a minimum of service interruption.

  1. Add a new network-storage service named files, that has at least enough space for your existing files with some buffer.

    Caution

    You may need to increase your project’s allocated storage to do this. This operation is not reversible and will incur charges.

  2. Add a new mount to the network storage service on a non-public directory:

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       mounts:
       '/var': { source: local, source_path: var }
       '/public/uploads': { source: local, source_path: uploads }
+      '/new-uploads': { source: service, service: files, source_path: uploads }

  3. Deploy the changes;

  4. Connect to your container using symfony ssh;

  5. Use rsync to copy all files from the local mount to the network mount:

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    $ rsync -avz web/uploads/* new-uploads/

  6. Reverse the mounts, commit and deploy:

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       mounts:
       '/var': { source: local, source_path: var }
-      '/public/uploads': { source: local, source_path: uploads }
+      '/old-uploads': { source: local, source_path: uploads }
-      '/new-uploads': { source: service, service: files, source_path: uploads }
+      '/public/uploads': { source: service, service: files, source_path: uploads }

  7. Run rsync again to make sure all files uploaded during the transition are moved.

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    $ rsync -avz old-uploads/* web/uploads/

  8. Once you’re confident that all files are accounted for, delete the entire contents of old-uploads.

  9. Once done, you can remove the old-uploads mount and push again to finish the process. You are also free to reduce the disk size in the .symfony.cloud.yaml file if desired.

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.