With the release of my post on Vagrant, I discovered a personal need I had to host and store large files, semi-professionally, without much hassle. After considering Dropbox, various file lockers, or uploading the file to my webserver, I decided to use Rackspace Cloud Files.
I’ve talked about Rackspace in the past, and am currently using their
cloud servers to host this site (among others). The interface is clean,
easy to use, and it’s reliable. I wanted to have downloads from my site
coming from files.samurailink3.com
, it just looks better and provides a
more cohesive user experience. I solved this problem very quickly by
using a CNAME. It was really really easy. Check it out:
First, create a new public CDN container. Next, click on the gear and hit
“View All Links…”. Copy the http or https link and take a look at it:
http://somerandomjunk.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com
Head over to your domain host and go to your DNS settings. You’ll need to
create a new CNAME
record. I’ve named mine files
.
Take the fully qualified domain from your link, minus the http://
and
make that the target host of your new CNAME
. Like this:
Type: CNAME
Host: files
Target Host: somerandomjunk.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com
You can now upload files and head to
http://files.example.com/myfile.mp3
to access those huge files, without
bogging down your web server.