Help implementing a new server for images and stuff

[Jakotsu]

Hi, I have a site with heavy traffic and lots of dynamic content, so I'll have to implement an external server to store images, and relief Apache from serving them. But I'm not sure about the implementation for this.

I'd like to have a subdomain like images.mysite.com pointing to the image server (with different IP of course), and I'm not sure how to do that. I have DirectAdmin and full root access on both servers.

Also, when a user uploads a photo using the PHP scripts, the image must be stored on the other server. The only way I can figure out to do this is using the PHP FTP functions, but I wonder if there's a more convenient way to do this.

Any tips on any of the issues I asked will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[incrediBILL]

The only way I can figure out to do this is using the PHP FTP functions, but I wonder if there's a more convenient way to do this.

FTP or SCP over SSH, but another alternative is the Network File System (NFS) that allows you to mount the other server as a drive and then use normal file operations.

[Jakotsu]

Thanks, for now I'll use the normal FTP functions because it seems to be quite fast and effective. When I connect to the root with WinSCP in SCP mode, everything seems much slower than the normal FTP access.

[incrediBILL]

That's because SCP is secure, it uses SSH.

If you're using raw FTP instead of SFTP you're broadcasting your password in plain text every time you upload an image.

It's a trade off of security vs speed.