How to set-up a Django project with django-storages and Amazon S3, but with different folders for static files and media files?

I’m currently using this code in a separated s3utils module:

from django.core.exceptions import SuspiciousOperation
from django.utils.encoding import force_unicode

from storages.backends.s3boto import S3BotoStorage


def safe_join(base, *paths):
    """
    A version of django.utils._os.safe_join for S3 paths.

    Joins one or more path components to the base path component intelligently.
    Returns a normalized version of the final path.

    The final path must be located inside of the base path component (otherwise
    a ValueError is raised).

    Paths outside the base path indicate a possible security sensitive operation.
    """
    from urlparse import urljoin
    base_path = force_unicode(base)
    paths = map(lambda p: force_unicode(p), paths)
    final_path = urljoin(base_path + ("/" if not base_path.endswith("/") else ""), *paths)
    # Ensure final_path starts with base_path and that the next character after
    # the final path is '/' (or nothing, in which case final_path must be
    # equal to base_path).
    base_path_len = len(base_path) - 1
    if not final_path.startswith(base_path) 
       or final_path[base_path_len:base_path_len + 1] not in ('', '/'):
        raise ValueError('the joined path is located outside of the base path'
                         ' component')
    return final_path


class StaticRootS3BotoStorage(S3BotoStorage):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(StaticRootS3BotoStorage, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.location = kwargs.get('location', '')
        self.location = 'static/' + self.location.lstrip('/')

    def _normalize_name(self, name):
        try:
            return safe_join(self.location, name).lstrip('/')
        except ValueError:
            raise SuspiciousOperation("Attempted access to '%s' denied." % name)


class MediaRootS3BotoStorage(S3BotoStorage):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(MediaRootS3BotoStorage, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.location = kwargs.get('location', '')
        self.location = 'media/' + self.location.lstrip('/')

    def _normalize_name(self, name):
        try:
            return safe_join(self.location, name).lstrip('/')
        except ValueError:
            raise SuspiciousOperation("Attempted access to '%s' denied." % name)

Then, in my settings module:

DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'myproyect.s3utils.MediaRootS3BotoStorage'
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'myproyect.s3utils.StaticRootS3BotoStorage'

I got to redefine the _normalize_name() private method to use a “fixed” version of the safe_join() function, since the original code is giving me SuspiciousOperation exceptions for legal paths.

I’m posting this for consideration, if anyone can give a better answer or improve this one, it will be very welcome.

I think the answer is pretty simple and done by default. This is working for me on AWS Elastic Beanstalk with Django 1.6.5 and Boto 2.28.0:

STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
)

TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (
    'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
    'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
)

DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'storages.backends.s3boto.S3BotoStorage'
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'storages.backends.s3boto.S3BotoStorage'
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = os.environ['AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID']
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = os.environ['AWS_SECRET_KEY']

The AWS keys are passed in from the container config file and I have no STATIC_ROOT or STATIC_URL set at all. Also, no need for the s3utils.py file. These details are handled by the storage system automatically. The trick here is that I needed to reference this unknown path in my templates correctly and dynamically. For example:

<link rel="icon" href="{% static "img/favicon.ico" %}">

That is how I address my favicon which lives locally (pre-deployment) in ~/Projects/my_app/project/my_app/static/img/favicon.ico.

Of course I have a separate local_settings.py file for accessing this stuff locally in dev environment and it does have STATIC and MEDIA settings. I had to do a lot of experimenting and reading to find this solution and it works consistently with no errors.

I understand that you need the static and root separation and considering that you can only provide one bucket I would point out that this method takes all the folders in my local environment under ~/Projects/my_app/project/my_app/static/and creates a folder in the bucket root (ie: S3bucket/img/ as in the example above). So you do get separation of files. For example you could have a media folder in the static folder and access it via templating with this:

{% static "media/" %}

I hope this helps. I came here looking for the answer and pushed a bit harder to find a simpler solution than to extend the storage system. Instead, I read the documentation about the intended use of Boto and I found that a lot of what I needed was built-in by default. Cheers!

---

File: PROJECT_NAME/custom_storages.py

from django.conf import settings
from storages.backends.s3boto import S3BotoStorage

class StaticStorage(S3BotoStorage):
    location = settings.STATICFILES_LOCATION

class MediaStorage(S3BotoStorage):
    location = settings.MEDIAFILES_LOCATION

File: PROJECT_NAME/settings.py

STATICFILES_LOCATION = 'static'
MEDIAFILES_LOCATION = 'media'

if not DEBUG:
    STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'PROJECT_NAME.custom_storages.StaticStorage'
    DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'PROJECT_NAME.custom_storages.MediaStorage'
    AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = 'KEY_XXXXXXX'
    AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = 'SECRET_XXXXXXXXX'
    AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME = 'BUCKET_NAME'
    AWS_HEADERS = {'Cache-Control': 'max-age=86400',}
    AWS_QUERYSTRING_AUTH = False

And run: python manage.py collectstatic

If you want to have subfolders even before media or static seperations, you can use AWS_LOCATION on top of bradenm answer.
Reference: https://django-storages.readthedocs.io/en/latest/backends/amazon-S3.html#usage

AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME = 'bucket_name'
AWS_LOCATION = 'path1/path2/'

Bradenm’s answer is outdated and doesn’t work so I updated it in March 2021.

Updated One:

---

Create a s3utils.py in the same folder of "settings.py":

from storages.backends.s3boto3 import S3Boto3Storage

StaticRootS3Boto3Storage = lambda: S3Boto3Storage(location='static')
MediaRootS3Boto3Storage  = lambda: S3Boto3Storage(location='media')

Then, add 2 lines of code to settings.py and change "myproject" to your folder name:

DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'myproject.s3utils.MediaRootS3Boto3Storage'
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'myproject.s3utils.StaticRootS3Boto3Storage'

---

The updated one has multiple "3s" as I emphasize below.

s3utils.py:

from storages.backends.s3boto"3" import S3Boto"3"Storage
    
StaticRootS3Boto"3"Storage = lambda: S3Boto"3"Storage(location='static')
MediaRootS3Boto"3"Storage  = lambda: S3Boto"3"Storage(location='media')

settings.py:

DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'myproject.s3utils.MediaRootS3Boto"3"Storage'
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'myproject.s3utils.StaticRootS3Boto"3"Storage'

Check and compare with Bradenm’s (outdated) answer.

"I respect Bradenm’s answer."