Very often, I need to quickly host a file for use in a forum post or on IRC. My usual approach has been to mount a "temporary" directory from my web server on my desktop, over ssh. However, I recently started using Dropbox to keep my important files synced: with this, I can access my school work from school without having to resort to ssh heroics or remembering to carry a flash drive with me (let's not get started on keeping it synchronized). Dropbox offers 2GB of storage for free, and they include a handy Public folder you can use to share files. Nice.

My little temporary directory, in practice, isn't very temporary. I rarely delete anything from it; indeed, the oldest image is nearing two years old. I also keep throughput test files there, and I kinda need those to be on my server. However, I hate remembering multiple long URLs, especially ones like http://www.hoopycat.com/~rtucker/tmp/moooar.PNG and http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3597105/system-fullpower.png. I also want to be able to transparently move files around as my needs change. And, most importantly, I want my stuff under the hoopycat.com domain for maximum flexibility.

So, I set up a dedicated hostname: http://drop.hoopycat.com/.

Here's the flow:

• A request is received for http://drop.hoopycat.com/filename. (Note: requests for / get redirected to http://hoopycat.com/).
• If filename exists in ~rtucker/public_html/tmp, serve it up.
• If it doesn't, issue a HTTP redirect to http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3597105/filename.

Easy enough, and it works darn well. I do no checks for the file's existence on Dropbox, so their 404 page gets served up for totally bogus URLs. This is not a big deal in practice.

The configuration of lighttpd is simple, using mod_magnet and a small Lua script. To lighttpd.conf or a conf-available/ file of your choice, add:

Code:

Then, create /etc/lighttpd/conditional-redirect.lua with the following script, borrowed from an example at http://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/AbsoLUAtion:

Code:

Remember to replace the dl.dropbox.com URL with yours (and change everything else, too).

Assuming DNS is set up correctly and mod_magnet is installed (it's lighttpd-mod-magnet in Ubuntu 8.04), a restart of lighttpd should yield good results!