Browser-Based Uploads Using HTTP POST

Tigris facilitates the posting of objects via HTTP, which proves beneficial in scenarios where bucket owners prefer their users to upload objects to a bucket through an HTML form.

At a high level, the following process outlines browser-based uploads:

• The user generates a post-policy, which sets constraints on allowable uploads.
• The user then signs this post-policy with an access key using AWS signature version 4.
• The user's web server delivers the HTML form. The form's post action is configured to submit the object, signature, and accompanying metadata to the Tigris server.
• Upon receiving the submission, the Tigris server verifies the signature and enforces the constraints outlined in the post-policy.
• Upon successful verification, Tigris proceeds to write the object and redirects the browser to the success URL specified in the policy.

There are a few distinctions in how Tigris executes this functionality compared to AWS S3:

• Due to Tigris being a globally accessible service with global replication, the region segment of the X-Amz-Credential is designated as auto.
• Tigris supports only public-read and private ACLs at Object. Read more about it here.
• For signature verification, Tigris only supports Signature version 4.

Example

Consider a scenario where you need to enable users to upload images via your web application accessed through web browsers.

For illustrative purposes, let's utilize the following credentials:

AccessKeyId	SecretAccessKey
tid_example_key_id	tsec_example_H3CYVqDGmFxdXGlruqb16mS22qj59Ag9H3CYVqDGmFxdXGlruqb16mS22qj59

First step, define a policy

{
  "expiration": "2024-03-30T12:00:00.000Z",
  "conditions": [
    { "bucket": "my-user-images" },
    ["starts-with", "$key", "images1/"],
    { "success_action_redirect": "https://your-website.com/success.html" },
    ["starts-with", "$Content-Type", "image/"],
    { "x-amz-meta-uuid": "465888667" },
    { "x-amz-credential": "tid_example_key_id/20240330/auto/s3/aws4_request" },
    { "x-amz-algorithm": "AWS4-HMAC-SHA256" },
    { "x-amz-date": "20240330T000000Z" }
  ]
}

• This policy mandates that uploads must occur before noon UTC on March 30, 2024.
• It permits uploads to the bucket named my-user-images.
• Objects posted here must have keys starting with images1/.
• Upon successful upload, the Tigris server will redirect the user to https://your-website.com/success.html.
• The content type of the object must start with image/, indicating that only image contents are accepted as per this policy.
• The unique UUID associated with the post must match 465888667. It is recommended to use a secure random number or UUID for better security practices.
• The credentials used to sign this policy have an access key ID of tid_example_key_id, and the date must match the expiration date.
• Full detailed grammar of policy is documented here

Truncate space characters

Removing spaces and newlines will make it easier to verify the results locally, eliminating any LF/CRLF confusion.

The policy below has its double-quotes escaped as well.

{\"expiration\":\"2024-03-30T12:00:00.000Z\",\"conditions\":[{\"bucket\":\"my-user-images\"},[\"starts-with\",\"$key\",\"images1/\"],{\"success_action_redirect\":\"https://your-website.com/success.html\"},[\"starts-with\",\"$Content-Type\",\"image/\"],{\"x-amz-meta-uuid\":\"465888667\"},{\"x-amz-credential\":\"tid_example_key_id/20240330/auto/s3/aws4_request\"},{\"x-amz-algorithm\":\"AWS4-HMAC-SHA256\"},{\"x-amz-date\":\"20240330T000000Z\"}]}

Base64 encode this policy

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

Sign the policy

Utilize the AWS signature v4 to sign the base64-encoded policy. Employ the base64-encoded version of the policy as the StringToSign.

Signature = Hex(
              HMAC-SHA256(
                  HMAC-SHA256(
                      HMAC-SHA256(
                          HMAC-SHA256(
                              HMAC-SHA256(
                                  "AWS4"+<SecretAccessKey>",
                                  "<yyyymmdd>"
                              ),
                              "auto"
                          ),
                          "s3"
                      ),
                      "aws4_request"
                  ),
                  StringToSign
              )
          )

Note:

• First argument in this illustrative function is the key and second argument is the message to sign.
• The date will be same as the expiration date. In our example it will be 20240330
• Region is marked as auto and service is s3

The signature of our example policy will be

5e1fd1320a7d0b001275718a680f7c6d74343b40aecf9af5c16fd6a532144584

Generate the HTML form

<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <form
      action="https://my-user-images.fly.storage.tigris.dev/"
      method="post"
      enctype="multipart/form-data"
    >
      Key to upload:
      <input type="input" name="key" value="images1/${filename}" /><br />
      <input
        type="hidden"
        name="success_action_redirect"
        value="https://your-website.com/success.html"
      />
      <input type="hidden" name="Content-Type" value="image/jpeg" /><br />
      <input type="hidden" name="x-amz-meta-uuid" value="465888667" />
      <input
        type="hidden"
        name="X-Amz-Credential"
        value="tid_example_key_id/20240330/auto/s3/aws4_request"
      />
      <input type="hidden" name="X-Amz-Algorithm" value="AWS4-HMAC-SHA256" />
      <input type="hidden" name="X-Amz-Date" value="20240330T000000Z" />
      <input
        type="hidden"
        name="Policy"
        value="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"
      />
      <input
        type="hidden"
        name="X-Amz-Signature"
        value="5e1fd1320a7d0b001275718a680f7c6d74343b40aecf9af5c16fd6a532144584"
      />
      File:
      <input type="file" name="file" /> <br />
      <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Upload to Tigris" />
    </form>
  </body>
</html>

Note: post parameters are case-insensitive.

Security

When employing a post policy, take care to restrict the types of content users can upload, particularly if you're utilizing a custom domain. Uploading files such as HTML, JS, SVG, or executable browser files could potentially result in XSS vulnerabilities on your domain.