Serve your WordPress media from Amazon S3.
Offloft copies your WordPress media to an Amazon S3 bucket you own, checks every file and image size in the bucket, and only then serves it to your visitors. It needs a key limited to that one bucket, and the guide has the exact policy. The free plugin does all of this.
Why Amazon S3 for WordPress?
S3 is the most widely used object storage, and most tools and hosts know how to work with it.
You choose the region when you create the bucket, so you can keep files close to your visitors. It can't be changed later.
Downloads are charged per GB after the free monthly amount, so a busy site should estimate that part of the bill. See the pricing link below.
| Storage | $0.023 per GB a month (US East, first 50 TB) |
|---|---|
| Visitor downloads | First 100 GB a month free across AWS, then $0.09 per GB for the next 10 TB |
| Minimum storage time | None for S3 Standard |
| Custom domain or CDN | The bucket address works straight away. Your own domain needs a CDN in front |
| Free tier | New AWS customers get up to $200 in credits, on a plan that lasts 6 months |
How Offloft works with Amazon S3
Each file is uploaded, then checked in your Amazon S3 bucket. Only after that does your site load it from the cloud. If a check fails, your site keeps using the local copy.
Setup in short
- Create an S3 bucket in the region closest to your visitors.
- Create an IAM policy for this bucket only, and a user with it.
- Create an access key and copy it into Offloft.
- Allow public reads with the bucket policy, then run the connection test and the delivery check.
Pro on Amazon S3
Offloft Pro can create the bucket, a key for that bucket only and the media address, using temporary access it never saves. It also adds scheduled audits, automatic repair, alerts and safe removal of local copies.
Questions
What permissions does Offloft need on S3?
List on the bucket, and put, get, delete and abort-multipart on its files. The guide has the exact IAM policy, limited to one bucket.
Do I have to make the bucket public?
Visitors need to read the files. The bucket policy in the guide lets anyone read a file whose address they know. Nobody can list, change or delete files.
Can I use a bucket that already holds other files?
You can, but a bucket made for this site is simpler and easier to protect, because its key reaches nothing else.
Your media, in your bucket, checked.
Install Offloft free. Setup takes five steps, and nothing moves until the connection test passes.