Question

I’m looking to build a backend for accepting user-uploaded images, renaming them and storing them in a file system (no, it’s not an Instagram)

I was thinking of simply renaming the image and storing in a user folder:

images/{userid}/{userid}_{md5(timestamp)}.jpg

The associations would also be included in the database.

Is that a good/sufficient model?

Answer 1

Essentially your method is just fine, but here are my suggestions to you:

• dont use the the timestamp in the filename, since you’re already storing the filename in the DB, just create extra columns for the timestamp <->
  file relationship. This way its easier to manage things like original
  creation, last modified, or even expiration dates.
• make sure the column for the filename your storing is unique. You dont want to accidently store duplicate filenames
• do a cross check on acceptance of the files. if the file is saved to the server successfully but the query fails, make sure to delete the
  file on failure. Or if your order of operations is reversed, remove
  the entry in the DB if the file fails to save to the server.
• if the images are not allowed to be publicly accessible, you can deny viewing of the images normally and instead direct users to a
  link (PHP file) with the filename as a GET variable. Then you can
  check SESSIONS and/or COOKIES to determine if they are authorized to
  view it. If they are, you can set the headers of the output to be
  that of a jpeg or whatever kind of file they are viewing.