Redirecting URLs and directory structure

Hello,

I have a server that serves static content, and most of it are images.
These images are all stored in a directory, and there are about 4
million images in this directory.

I believe that this storage structure is, in the medium term, unsafe and
not dynamic, making scalability and backup virtually impossible via the
network, mainly because the server is hosted in another country.

Thinking of a way to solve this problem, I got a chance, but that may
not be the right solution. My suggestion is as follows:

Divide these images in directories based on the last 3 numbers of the
file name. (The files are named in ascending order in the format
(number).png)

Example.:

The absolute path of the file 123891.png on the server is /
imagens/8/91/123891.png. The file 456891.png also be in the same folder.
However the file 123456.png will be stored in the /
imagens/4/56/123456.png.

The structure is always based on the hundreds of file name (891), and
the number of the hundred (8) is the parent folder, and the numbers of
ten and unity (91) are the name of the child.

1st question: is there a way of making a request to
http://server.foo.bar/images/123456.png, Apache will redirect or treat
this URL for the correct path through a regular expression?

2nd question: I would like suggestions on how to better structure the
files for better performance. Other possible solutions would be to
create even more specific directories or the migration to a distributed
storage service.

Thanks.

[]s
Fábio Jr.

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Re: Redirecting URLs and directory structure

On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 3:29 PM, "F=E1bio Jr." wrot=
e:

> 1st question: is there a way of making a request to
> http://server.foo.bar/images/123456.png, Apache will redirect or treat th=
is
> URL for the correct path through a regular expression?

You can use mod_rewrite for this, and it is entirely up to you if you
want this done with a redirect that is visible to the outside or not.

For example:

This will rewrite internally. To the outside world nothing changes:
RewriteRule /images/(.*)(.)(..)\.png /newimages/$2/$3/$1$2$3.png

This will cause a redirect:
RewriteRule /images/(.*)(.)(..)\.png /newimages/$2/$3/$1$2$3.png [R]

If you do a redirect you need to worry about loops, which is why I
suggest you use a different basedir for your new images structure.

You can read about mod_rewrite here:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/rewrite/

Study this documentation and if you have any questions left after that
feel free to ask here...

Krist


--=20
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krist@vanbesien.org
Bremgarten b. Bern, Switzerland
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