Use Backblaze B2 as Django Default Storage

Question

I want to use Backblaze B2 to serve media files only in Django. I have used django-storages for that purpose, and as per it's documentation it support Backblaze B2.

I used the below configuration in settings.py -

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ............
    'storages',
    'boto',
]

STORAGES = {
    "default": {
        "BACKEND": "storages.backends.s3boto3.S3Boto3Storage",
    },
    "staticfiles": {
        "BACKEND": "whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage",
    },
}

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = "<my_backblaze_application_keyID>"
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = "<my_backblaze_applicationKey>"
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME = "<my_public_bucket_name>"
AWS_S3_REGION_NAME = "<region_set_by_backblaze>"
AWS_S3_ENDPOINT = f"s3.{AWS_S3_REGION_NAME}.backblazeb2.com"
AWS_S3_ENDPOINT_URL = f"https://{AWS_S3_ENDPOINT}"
AWS_S3_CUSTOM_DOMAIN = f'{AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME}.{AWS_S3_ENDPOINT}'

MEDIA_URL = '/media/'

But the files are not uploading in the Backblaze. How to implement that properly?

Can you provide some additional details on what you observe when uploading a file ? Do you get an error or does the file end up in a different location than backblaze (like the local filesystem) ? Are you observing this with Django's development server or a production one ? — Araelath, May 11 '23 at 08:20
@Araelath I'm not getting any error. From the django admin site, when I upload a file for a model, the file should upload to backblazeb, the django admin not throwing any error it successfully save the data, but the file is not uploading to the Backblazeb server. — Samiddha, May 11 '23 at 08:49
Hi - I see you marked my answer as correct - thanks! May I ask what the issue turned out to be? — metadaddy, May 16 '23 at 16:07

metadaddy · Accepted Answer · 2023-05-12T21:08:40.383

You mentioned in a comment that it silently fails, but it saves the data? Does it save the uploaded file to disk also? If so, it sounds like it's still using the default storage backend.

I just spun up a Django app to test this, as I've had it working in the past, but not since Django 4.2 changed storage configuration. These are the settings that worked for me.

settings.py

STORAGES = {
    "default": {
        "BACKEND": "storages.backends.s3boto3.S3Boto3Storage"
    },
    "staticfiles": {
        "BACKEND": "django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage"
    }
}

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = os.environ['B2_APPLICATION_KEY_ID']
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = os.environ['B2_APPLICATION_KEY']
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME = os.environ['B2_BUCKET_NAME']
AWS_S3_REGION_NAME = os.environ['B2_REGION']
AWS_S3_ENDPOINT = f's3.{AWS_S3_REGION_NAME}.backblazeb2.com'
AWS_S3_ENDPOINT_URL = f'https://{AWS_S3_ENDPOINT}'
AWS_DEFAULT_ACL = 'public-read'

AWS_LOCATION = 'media/'

Notes on the settings:

I didn't need to add anything to INSTALLED_APPS
I used the default static storage backend, since I was focused on the Backblaze B2 configuration
I'm in the habit of setting credentials as environment variables, to reduce the chance they leak when I push code to GitHub, StackOverflow etc.
AWS_S3_REGION_NAME should be us-west-004, eu-central-003 or similar
It looks like you're using a public bucket. By default, the S3 backend creates files with a private ACL, but B2 sets visibility at the bucket level, and object ACL's have to match.
To put files in a particular folder in the bucket, you need to use AWS_LOCATION, rather than MEDIA_URL. Note that you don't need the leading / in the location.

I put the entire sample online at https://github.com/backblaze-b2-samples/django-42-example, so you can see how I set up the model, view etc.

One final thought - check your Django version:

% python -m django --version 
4.2.1

If you're using a version older than Django 4.2, the syntax for storage settings is different. You'll need to change this:

STORAGES = {
    "default": {
        "BACKEND": "storages.backends.s3boto3.S3Boto3Storage",
    },
    "staticfiles": {
        "BACKEND": "whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage",
    },
}

to this:

DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'storages.backends.s3boto3.S3Boto3Storage'

STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage'

I have figured out the problem earlier. Actually, the pip installed old version (<4.2) of Django from cache; and I though that I have the latest version of Django, so I have used STORAGES confg as per the latest version and hence it's not working. I have upgraded the Django and it's solved the problem as expected. — Samiddha, May 17 '23 at 04:14

Use Backblaze B2 as Django Default Storage

1 Answers1