Skipper makes it easy to implement streaming file uploads to disk, S3, or any supported file upload adapters.

============================================

Quick Start

The following example assumes skipper is already installed as the body parser in your Express or Sails app. It receives one or more files from a file parameter named avatar using the default, built-in file adapter (skipper-disk). This streams the file(s) to the default upload directory .tmp/uploads/ on the server's local disk.

req.file('avatar').upload(function (err, uploadedFiles){
  if (err) return res.send(500, err);
  return res.send(200, uploadedFiles);
});

============================================

Installation

Skipper is installed in Sails automatically (see https://github.com/sails101/file-uploads for a sample Sails app that handles file uploads).

To install Skipper in a vanilla Express app:

npm install skipper --save

app.use(require('skipper')());

============================================

Global options

Skipper accepts several options when it is first instantiated that allow you to configure how it behaves, including various timeouts. See the “Configuring Skipper” docs on sailsjs.org for more information.

Using req.file(...).upload()

As is true with most methods on req, usage of Skipper's req.file() is identical between Sails (in a controller) and Express (in a route).

req.file('avatar').upload(function (err, uploadedFiles) {
  if (err) return res.send(500, err);
  return res.json({
    message: uploadedFiles.length + ' file(s) uploaded successfully!',
    files: uploadedFiles
  });
});

Options

Option	Type	Description
dirname	((string))	Optional. The path to the directory on the remote filesystem where file uploads should be streamed. May be specified as an absolute path (e.g. /Users/mikermcneil/foo) or a relative path. In the latter case, or if no dirname is provided, the configured filesystem adapter will determine a dirname using a conventional default (varies adapter to adapter). If dirname is used with saveAs- the filename from saveAs will be relative to dirname.
saveAs	((string)) -or- ((function))	Optional. By default, Skipper decides an "at-rest" filename for your uploaded files (called the fd) by generating a UUID and combining it with the file's original file extension when it was uploaded ("e.g. 24d5f444-38b4-4dc3-b9c3-74cb7fbbc932.jpg"). If saveAs is specified as a string, any uploaded file(s) will be saved to that particular path instead (should only be used for simple, single-file uploads). When used with multi-file uploads, saveAs should be specified as a function. This function will be called each time a file is received, and Skipper will pass it the raw file stream (__newFileStream) and a callback (next). If something goes critically wrong, your saveAs function should trigger its callback with an Error instance as the first argument (e.g. return next(new Error('Could not determine appropriate filename.'));). Otherwise, it should call its callback with undefined as the first argument, and pass in the fd string as the second argument. For example: saveAs: function (__newFileStream, next) { return next(undefined, 'the-uploaded-file.txt'); } If a file already exists with the same fd, it will be overridden. The final file descriptor (fd) for the upload will be resolved relative from dirname.
maxBytes	((integer))	Optional. Max total number of bytes permitted for a given upload, calculated by summing the size of all files in the upstream; e.g. if you created an upstream that watches the "avatar" field (req.file('avatar')), and a given request sends 15 file fields with the name "avatar", maxBytes will check the total number of bytes in all of the 15 files. If maxBytes is exceeded, the already-written files will be left untouched, but unfinshed file uploads will be garbage-collected, and not-yet-started uploads will be cancelled. (Note that maxBytes is currently experimental)
onProgress	((function))	Optional. This function will be called again and again as the upstream pumps chunks into the receiver with a dictionary (plain JavaScript object) representing the current status of the upload, until the upload completes.

Error codes

• E_EXCEEDS_UPLOAD_LIMIT (when maxBytes is exceeded for upstream)
• E_EXCEEDS_FILE_SIZE_LIMIT (when maxBytesPerFile is exceeded for any given file -- currently S3 only)

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Use Cases

Uploading files to disk

skipper-disk is a file adapter that uploads files to the local hard drive on the server. It is bundled with Skipper, so if an adapter option is not specified (as in the Quick Start example above) it is used by default.

req.file('avatar').upload({
  // ...any other options here...
}, ...);

It exposes the following adapter-specific options:

Option	Type	Description
dirname	((string))	The path to a directory where files will be uploaded. By default, this is relative to cwd in ./.tmp/uploads.

Uploading files to S3

$ npm install skipper-s3 --save

skipper-s3 is a filesystem adapter which enables Skipper to stream file uploads directly to Amazon S3.

req.file('avatar').upload({
  // ...any other options here...
  adapter: require('skipper-s3'),
  key: 'YOUR_S3_API_KEY',
  secret: 'YOUR_S3_API_SECRET',
  bucket: 'YOUR_S3_BUCKET',
  headers: {
    'x-amz-acl': 'YOUR_FILE_PERMISSIONS'
  }
}, ...);

It exposes the following adapter-specific options:

Option	Type	Description
key	((string))	Your AWS "Access Key ID", e.g. "BZIZIZFFHXR27BFUOZ7" (required)
secret	((string))	Your AWS "Secret Access Key", e.g. "L8ZN3aP1B9qkUgggUnEZ6KzrQJbJxx4EMjNaWy3n" (required)
bucket	((string))	The bucket to upload your files into, e.g. "my_cool_file_uploads" (required)
endpoint	((string))	By default all requests will be sent to the global endpoint s3.amazonaws.com. But if you want to manually set the endpoint, you can do it with the endpoint option.
region	((string))	The S3 region where the bucket is located, e.g. "us-west-2". Note: If endpoint is defined, region will be ignored. Defaults to "us-standard"
headers	((object))	A set of headers to be added to the upload request. See the Amazon S3 PUT Object docs for info about the available headers, and the canned ACL docs for a list of access-control settings you can use with the x-amz-acl header to specify permissions for your uploaded files

Uploading files to PostgreSQL

$ npm install skipper-postgresql --save

skipper-postgresql allows Skipper to store files in a PostgreSQL database.

Uploading files to gridfs

$ npm install skipper-gridfs --save

skipper-gridfs is a filesystem adapter which enables Skipper to stream file uploads directly to MongoDB's GridFS.

req.file('avatar').upload({
  // ...any other options here...
  adapter: require('skipper-gridfs'),
  uri: 'mongodb://[username:password@]host1[:port1][/[database[.bucket]]'
}, ...);

It exposes the following adapter-specific options:

Option	Type	Description
uri	((string))	the MongoDB database where uploaded files should be stored (using mongo client URI syntax) e.g. mongodb://jimmy:[email protected]:27017/coolapp.avatar_uploads

Note: As of [email protected], this adapter does not currently support Node versions >= v4.0.

Uploading files to Openstack Swift

$ npm install skipper-openstack --save

skipper-openstack is a filesystem adapter which enables Skipper to stream file uploads directly to Openstack blob storage, Swift.

req.file('avatar').upload({
  // ...any other options here...
  adapter: require('skipper-openstack'),
  credentials: {
    region: "YOUR_REGION",
    userId: "YOUR_USER_ID"
    password: "YOUR_PASSWORD"
    auth_url: "YOUR_AUTH_URL"
    projectId: "YOUR_TENANT_ID"
  },
  container: "YOUR_CONTAINER_NAME"
}, ...);

Uploading files to Azure

$ npm install skipper-azure --save

skipper-azure is a filesystem adapter which enables Skipper to stream file uploads directly to Azure blob storage.

req.file('avatar').upload({
  // ...any other options here...
  adapter: require('skipper-azure'),
  key: 'YOUR_AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT',
  secret: 'YOUR_AZURE_API_SECRET',
  container: 'YOUR_AZURE_CONTAINER'
}, ...);

It exposes the following adapter-specific options:

Option	Type	Description
key	((string))	Your Azure "Storage Account", e.g. "my_storage" (required)
secret	((string))	Your Azure "Primary Secret Access Key", e.g. "L8ZN3aP1B9qkUgggUnEZ6KzrQJbJxx4EMjNaWy3n" (required)
container	((string))	The container to upload your files into, e.g. "my_cool_file_uploads" (required)

============================================

Background

Skipper extends the HTTP body parser used in Sails and Express.

It parses multipart requests (file uploads) using andrewrk/node-multiparty, but instead of buffering to a tmp directory on disk, it exposes uploaded files as streams. This allows Skipper to run your application code before the file uploads are saved affording a number of benefits. Additionally, Skipper implements a file adapter specification that can be used to connect "upstreams" with various APIs (Box.net, imgur, whatever) with minimal integration effort.

File Adapters

The upstreams you get from req.file() can be hooked up to any compatible skipper adapter (e.g. local filesystem, S3, grid-fs). File upload adapters maintain a consistent specification for certain options/features; things like specifying the at-rest filename for a file upload or indicating the maximum upload size for a particular request. However some file adapters may provide additional functionality/options which are not part of the specification-- that's ok too! When possible, new features/options introduced by individual adapters will be standardized and pulled into the core spec, where they can be uniformly tested (in an adapter-agnostic way) using the skipper-adapter-tests module (inspired by the approach taken in waterline-adapter-tests)

Stream Processing

Working with upstreams means you can process file uploads in flight-- before they land on your server. This makes features like terrabyte file uploads (or ∞-byte, for that matter) a possibility by allowing you to restrict/limit uploads without receiving the entire thing. You can even tap into the raw file streams to peform streaming encryption, compression, or even image thumbnailing (although currently this requires implementing your own stream processing logic. Simple, one-line configuration to opt into those features is on the roadmap.)

Lazy Stream Initialization

Skipper only examines/processes any given file upload for as long as it takes to determine whether it is actually used by your app. For instance, if you don't write req.file('foo') in your app code, the stream will be ignored, whether it contains a 25KB image or a 30TB binary payload. This conserves valuable system resources and reducing the effectiveness of would-be DoS attacks.

Text Parameters

In addition to providing access to incoming file uploads as raw streams, Skipper allows you to access the other non-file metadata parameters (e.g "photoCaption" or "commentId") in the conventional way. That includes url/JSON-encoded HTTP body parameters (req.body), querystring parameters (req.query), or "route" parameters (req.params); in other words, all the standard stuff sent in standard AJAX uploads or HTML form submissions. And helper methods like req.param() and req.allParams() work too.

It is important to realize that the benefit above relies on a crucial, simplifying assumption: that user agents send any text parameters before the first file parameter in the multipart HTTP request body. For instance, in an HTML form that means putting all of your <input type="file"/> tags after the other inputs. If you don't want to lay your form out that way, you'll want to use AJAX to submit it instead (see jQuery File Upload / Angular File Upload) or listen for the form's "submit" event to reorder the inputs before submitting the form to the server.

The Big Assumption: Field Order

After a lot of research, @zolmeister, @sgress454 and I came to understand a critical fact about multipart form data: that fields are sent in order by browsers. This is true even as far back as IE6!

• http://stackoverflow.com/a/7450170/486547
• http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#h-17.13.4
• teamcapybara/capybara#670 (comment)

History

This module may will be is included as the default body parser in Sails, and has been since v0.10 when file upload support was removed from Express. The decision to include skipper in core was tough, since it is quite opinionated. But given the spotty/fragmented/confusing state of MPU implementations around the Node community, we didn't feel comfortable throwing out built-in support for file uploads. We hope this module helps clear things up for everybody.

FAQ

How do I customize the Skipper options in my Sails app?

In Sails v0.12.x on, simply configure the sails.config.http.middleware.bodyParser setting in config/http.js with a Skipper instance using your desired options:

// config/http.js

module.exports.http = {

  middleware: {

    bodyParser: require('skipper')({
      maxWaitTimeBeforePassingControlToApp: 1000
    })

  }

};

In Sails < v0.12.x, you’ll need to comment-out bodyParser from the middleware order, and replace it with a "custom" middleware. For example:

// config/http.js

module.exports.http = {

  middleware: {

    // The order in which middleware should be run for HTTP request.
    // (the Sails router is invoked by the "router" middleware below.)
    order: [
      'startRequestTimer',
      'cookieParser',
      'session',
      // 'bodyParser', // <-- don't add the "bodyParser" middleware to the stack
      'skipper',   // <-- instead use this "custom" middleware
      'handleBodyParserError',
      'compress',
      'methodOverride',
      'poweredBy',
      '$custom',
      'router',
      'www',
      'favicon',
      '404',
      '500'
    ],

    // Configure Skipper
    skipper: require('skipper')({
      maxWaitTimeBeforePassingControlToApp: 1000
    })

  }

};

How Does the Multipart Body Parser Work?

When a multipart request is received...

1. Skipper waits just long enough to identify the first file being uploaded in a request, then gathers up all the text parameters it's seen so far and runs your application code (i.e. calls next()).

2. In your application code, you call req.file('foo') to listen for file uploads sent as the "foo" parameter. This returns an "upstream"-- a stream of binary file streams; one for each file that was uploaded to the specified parameter ("foo") via an HTTP multipart file upload. At that point, if Skipper has already seen files come in as "foo", it will start uploading to the file adapter. This involves replaying the first buffered bytes its received of "foo" file uploads so far and "pumping" those streams so they start sending more bytes; i.e. relieving TCP backpressure. If Skipper has NOT already received any files as "foo", it will start listening for them.

3. When the request ends, or a significant (configurable) period of time has passed since a new file upload has shown up on "foo", the upstream is considered to be complete. If you're using req.file('foo').upload(function(err,uploadedFiles){ ... }), the callback will be triggered with uploadedFiles as an array of metadata objects describing the files that were uploaded (including the at-rest file descriptor.) If an error occured, the callback will be triggered with err instead. (Note that, if you're using the raw upstream directly, you can listen for the "finish" and "error" events to achieve the same effect.)

4. In general, when possible, you should put req.file() outside of asynchronous callbacks in your code. However this isn't always possible-- Skipper tolerates this case "holding on" to unrecognized file streams (e.g. "bar") for a configurable period of time. If you don't use req.file("bar") right away in your code, Skipper will "hold on" to any files received on that parameter ("bar"). However it won't pump bytes from those files until you use req.file('bar') in your code. It does this without buffering to disk/memory by properly implementing Node's streams2 interface, which applies TCP backpressure and actually slows down, or even pauses, the upload. If you never use req.file('bar') in your code, any unused pending file streams received on "bar" will be discarded when the request ends.

What are Upstreams?

An upstream is an object-mode Readable stream of Readable streams. It's purpose is to pump out incoming files.

When you call req.file('foo'), the upstream for the "foo" parameter in the current request (req) is lazy-initialized and returned (subsequent calls to req.file('foo') will return the same upstream, calling req.file('bar') will return the upstream for "bar", etc.).

•---------------------•
|   req.file('foo')   |   <------- an upstream
•----====-------------•
     |  |
     |  |
     |f2|     <------- an incoming file upload stream
     |  |
     |  |
     |f1|     <------- an incoming file upload stream
     |  |
     |  |
     |f0|     <------- an incoming file upload stream
    _|  |_
    \    /
     \  /
      \/

What are Upstream Receivers?

An upstream receiver is an object-mode Writable stream of Writable streams.

It's purpose is to receive incoming files that get pumped out of an upstream. Whenever a new file shows up, the receiver's _write() method gets called, and the receiver writes it to the remote filesystem.

•-----------------•
|  some upstream  |
•----====---------•
     |  |
     |  |
     |f2|   <------- an incoming file upload stream
     |  |
     |  |
     |f1|   <------- an incoming file upload stream
     |  |
     |  |
     |f0|   <------- an incoming file upload stream
    _|  |_
    \    /
o----ª==ª----o
|  receiver  |
o------------o

What are Filesystem Adapters?

A filesystem adapter is a node module which exports an object with the following functions:

Method	Description
ls()	Get the contents of the specified directory on the remote filesystem (returns an array of string file/folder names)
read()	Get a file from the remote filesystem
rm()	Remove a file or directory from the remote filesystem
receive()	Return an "upstream receiver" which will receive files pumped from an upstream and write them to the remote filesystem

The first three methods are also used by tools like sails-hook-uploads and skipper-adapter-tests. See skipper-disk or skipper-s3 for example implementations.

The most important method is receive() -- it builds the upstream receiver which is responsible for writing incoming files to the remote filesystem.

Note that in future releases of Skipper, the .receive() method may be replaced with a simpler alternative. (Discuss)

============================================

Low-Level Usage

Warning: You probably shouldn't try doing anything in this section unless you've implemented streams before, and in particular streams2 (i.e. "suck", not "spew" streams).

File adapter instances, receivers, upstreams, and binary streams

First instantiate a blob adapter (blobAdapter):

var blobAdapter = require('skipper-disk')();

Build a receiver (receiving):

var receiving = blobAdapter.receive();

Then you can stream file(s) from a particular field (req.file('foo')):

req.file('foo').upload(receiving, function (err, filesUploaded) {
  // ...
});

upstream.pipe(receiving)

As an alternative to the upload() method, you can pipe an incoming upstream returned from req.file() (a Readable stream of Readable binary streams) directly to the receiver (a Writable stream for Upstreams.)

req.file('foo').pipe(receiving);

There is no performance benefit to using .pipe() instead of .upload()-- they both use streams2. The .pipe() method is available merely as a matter of flexibility/chainability. Be aware that .upload() handles the error and finish events for you; if you choose to use .pipe(), you will of course need to listen for these events manually:

req.file('foo')
.on('error', function onError() { ... })
.on('finish', function onSuccess() { ... })
.pipe(receiving)

Also bear in mind that you must first intercept the upstream and attach an fd (file descriptor) property to each incoming file stream.

Generally, you're better off sticking with the standard usage.

Implementing receive()

The receive() method in a filesystem adapter must build and return a new upstream receiver.

This is the hardest part-- if you implement this, everything else in your adapter is a piece of cake. Here's a quick walk-through of how you can build and return a upstream receiver instance:

function receive() {

  // Build an instance of a writable stream in object mode.
  var receiver__ = require('stream').Writable({ objectMode: true });

  // This `_write` method is invoked each time a new file is pumped in
  // from the upstream.  `__newFile` is a readable binary stream.
  receiver__._write = function onFile(__newFile, _unused, done) {

    // If you are piping to this receiver using Skipper, adapter options like "bucket"
    // will be available as `__newFile.options` (otherwise it will be an empty object).
    var options = __newFile.options;


    // To determine location where file should be written on remote filesystem,
    // calculate the output path as follows:
    var outputPath = require('path').join(__newFile.dirname, __newFile.fd);


    // Then ensure necessary parent directories exist
    // ...

    // Create/acquire a writable stream to the remote filesystem
    // (this may involve using options like "bucket", "secret", etc. to build an appropriate request)
    // ...
    var outs__ = getWriteStreamSomehow(outputPath, encoding);


    // Pump bytes from the incoming file (`__newFile`)
    // to the outgoing stream towards the remote filesystem (`outs__`)
    __newFile.pipe(outs__);


    // Bind `finish` event for when the file has been completely written.
    outs.once('finish', function () {
      done();
    });


    // Handle potential error from the outgoing stream
    outs__.on('error', function (err) {

      // If this is not a fatal error (e.g. certain types of "ECONNRESET"s w/ S3)
      // don't do anything.
      if ( ! findOutIfIsFatalSomehow(err) ) return;

      // The handling of this might vary adapter-to-adapter, but at some point, the
      // `done` callback should be triggered w/ a properly formatted error object.
      // Since calling `done(err)` will cause an `error` event to be emitted on the receiver,
      // it is important to format the error in this way (esp. with code===E_WRITE) so it can
      // be detected and discriminated from other types of errors that might be emitted from a
      // receiver.
      return done({
        incoming: __newFile,
        outgoing: outs__,
        code: 'E_WRITE',
        stack: typeof err === 'object' ? err.stack : new Error(err),
        name: typeof err === 'object' ? err.name : err,
        message: typeof err === 'object' ? err.message : err
      });
      // If this receiver is being used through Skipper, this event will be intercepted and, if possible
      // (if the adapter implements the `rm` method) any bytes that were already written for this file
      // will be garbage-collected.
    });

  };

  return receiver__;
}

========================================

Specifying Options

All options may be passed in using any of the following approaches, in ascending priority order (e.g. the 3rd appraoch overrides the 1st)

1. In the blob adapter's factory method:

var blobAdapter = require('skipper-disk')({
  // These options will be applied unless overridden.
});

2. In a call to the .receive() factory method:

var receiving = blobAdapter.receive({
  // Options will be applied only to this particular receiver.
});

3. Directly into the .upload() method of the Upstream returned by req.file():

var upstream = req.file('foo').upload({
  // These options will be applied unless overridden.
});

============================================

Status

This module is published on npm. Development takes place on the master branch.

============================================

Contributing

Skipper follows the Contribution Guide from the Sails project.

The contribution guide is designed to help you get off the ground quickly contributing to Waterline. Reading it thoroughly will help you write useful issues, make eloquent proposals, and submit top-notch patches that can be merged quickly. Respecting the guidelines laid out in the guide helps make the core maintainers of Skipper more productive, and makes the experience of working with Skipper positive and enjoyable for the community at large.

If you are working on a pull request, please carefully read the contribution guide from top to bottom. In case of doubt, open an issue in the issue tracker or contact someone from our core team on Twitter. Especially do so if you plan to work on something big. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing your hard work go to waste because your vision does not align with planned or ongoing development efforts of the project's maintainers.

Release	Install Command	Build Status
(stable)	npm install skipper
edge	npm install skipper@git://github.com/balderdashy/skipper.git

Need support for a different remote filesystem, or just interested in writing your own adapter?

First read up on how Skipper works, then check out the spec to get started making your own adapter.

============================================

More Resources

• Stackoverflow
• Blog
• Twitter
• Roadmap
• Chat
• Facebook
• 

============================================

License

MIT © 2014-2016 Mike McNeil, Scott Gress, Balderdash & contributors

This module is part of the Sails framework, and is free and open-source under the MIT License.