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FileSystemProviders Configuration

Information on FileSystemProviders and how to configure them in Umbraco

Filesystem providers are configured via code, you can either configure it in a composer, or in the Program.cs file.

using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Composing;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.DependencyInjection;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.IO;
using Umbraco.Cms.Infrastructure.DependencyInjection;
using IHostingEnvironment = Umbraco.Cms.Core.Hosting.IHostingEnvironment;

namespace FilesystemProviders;

public class FilesystemComposer : IComposer
{
    public void Compose(IUmbracoBuilder builder) =>
        builder.SetMediaFileSystem(factory =>
        {
            IHostingEnvironment hostingEnvironment = factory.GetRequiredService<IHostingEnvironment>();
            var folderLocation = "~/CustomMediaFolder";
            var rootPath = hostingEnvironment.MapPathWebRoot(folderLocation);
            var rootUrl = hostingEnvironment.ToAbsolute(folderLocation);

            return new PhysicalFileSystem(
                factory.GetRequiredService<IIOHelper>(),
                hostingEnvironment,
                factory.GetRequiredService<ILogger<PhysicalFileSystem>>(),
                rootPath,
                rootUrl);
        });
}

By default Umbraco will save Media in a folder called /media within the webroot on the Physical file system. The code snippet above will change the location to instead save the media in a folder called /CustomMediaFolder within the webroot.

The media provider can be of many types, for example in case you want to store media on Azure, Amazon or even DB. But the provider that comes by default with the installation of Umbraco is the PhysicalFileSystem provider.

PhysicalFileSystem Configuration

The physical file system provider manages the interaction of Umbraco with the local file system. It can be configured for two different scenarios:

Media files stored inside a virtual folder of the site
Media files stored somewhere else outside of the site and accessed via a custom URL

Virtual Folder

To configure the PhysicalFileSystem for a virtual folder, create a new filesystem with a root path and URL within the wwwroot folder. Refer to the example above and Extending FileSystemProviders for more information.

Physical path

There are a few more steps involved if you want to store the media files in a separate folder outside the webroot.

First you must register the folder as a static file provider in your Program.cs file like so:

...
WebApplication app = builder.Build();
app.UseStaticFiles(new StaticFileOptions
    {
        FileProvider = new PhysicalFileProvider(Path.Combine("C:", "storage", "umbracoMedia")),
        RequestPath = "/CustomPath"
    });

Now you can register the folder as the media filesystem

using System.IO;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Composing;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.DependencyInjection;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Hosting;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.IO;
using Umbraco.Cms.Infrastructure.DependencyInjection;

namespace FilesystemProviders;

public class FilesystemComposer : IComposer
{
    public void Compose(IUmbracoBuilder builder)
    {
        builder.SetMediaFileSystem((factory) =>
        {
            IHostingEnvironment hostingEnvironment = factory.GetRequiredService<IHostingEnvironment>();
            var rootPath = Path.Combine("C:", "storage", "umbracoMedia");
            var rootUrl = hostingEnvironment.ToAbsolute("/CustomPath");

            return new PhysicalFileSystem(
                factory.GetRequiredService<IIOHelper>(),
                hostingEnvironment,
                factory.GetRequiredService<ILogger<PhysicalFileSystem>>(),
                rootPath,
                rootUrl);
        });
    }
}

This is much the same as when you register it within the wwwroot with a virutal folder. The only differnce is that now you provide an absolute root path and root URL to the physical filesystem.

rootPath is the full filesystem path where you want media files to be stored. It has to be rooted, must use directory separators (\) and must not end with a separator. For example, Z: or C:\path\to\folder or \\servername\path.
rootUrl is the URL where the files will be accessible from. It must use URL separators (/) and must not end with a separator. It can either be a folder, like /UmbracoMedia, in which case it will considered as subfolder of the main domain (example.com/UmbracoMedia) or can be a fully qualified URL, with also domain name and protocol (for ex http://media.example.com/media).

For more information see Extending FileSystemProviders.

Custom providers

To store media files in different systems, the type of provider must be changed. You can learn how to build a custom filesystem provider in the Extending Umbraco section.

At the moment when a file is saved, its full URL is stored as node property. This means that a configuration change will not apply to pre-existing media files but only to the ones saved after that.

If you want all your media files in the same location, you have to copy all pre-existing files to the new path. Additionally, you need to update the path property of the media item to the new URL. This can be either directly inside the database or by using the MediaService.

Get the contents of a file as a stream

The recommended approach to obtain a file's content as a stream is to utilize the MediaFileManager. It is advised to avoid reading the file directly from the server using methods like Server.MapPath. This will ensure that, regardless of the file system provider, the stream will be returned correctly. TThis example demonstrates using MediaFileManager to validate file existence and stream it back from a controller.

using System.IO;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.StaticFiles;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Cache;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Hosting;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.IO;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Logging;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Routing;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Services;
using Umbraco.Cms.Core.Web;
using Umbraco.Cms.Infrastructure.Persistence;
using Umbraco.Cms.Web.Website.Controllers;

namespace FilesystemProviders;

public class MediaController : SurfaceController
{
    private readonly MediaFileManager _mediaFileManager;
    private readonly IHostingEnvironment _hostingEnvironment;

    public MediaController(
        IUmbracoContextAccessor umbracoContextAccessor,
        IUmbracoDatabaseFactory databaseFactory,
        ServiceContext services,
        AppCaches appCaches,
        IProfilingLogger profilingLogger,
        IPublishedUrlProvider publishedUrlProvider,
        MediaFileManager mediaFileManager,
        IHostingEnvironment hostingEnvironment)
        : base(umbracoContextAccessor, databaseFactory, services, appCaches, profilingLogger, publishedUrlProvider)
    {
        _mediaFileManager = mediaFileManager;
        _hostingEnvironment = hostingEnvironment;
    }

    public IActionResult Index(string id, string file)
    {
        var path = _hostingEnvironment.MapPathWebRoot($"/media/{id}/{file}");

        if (_mediaFileManager.FileSystem.FileExists(path))
        {
            var stream = _mediaFileManager.FileSystem.OpenFile(path);
            stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);

            var provider = new FileExtensionContentTypeProvider();
            string contentType;
            if (!provider.TryGetContentType(file, out contentType))
            {
                contentType = "application/octet-stream";
            }

            return new FileStreamResult(stream, contentType);
        }

        return new NotFoundResult();
    }
}