Direct Cloud Storage Download

Configuration

To configure Artifactory for direct cloud storage download, follow the steps below:

1. Configuring the Artifactory Filestore to allow direct downloads
2. Specify the repositories that should redirect requests for direct download 
3. Fine-tune the configuration with direct download parameters 
4. Configure your firewall to allow direct downloads
5. Add the necessary configuration to use CloudFront (optional) 

Configuring the Artifactory Filestore

As described under Configuring the Filestore, you can control how Artifactory stores binaries using the $ARTIFACTORY_HOME/etc/binarystore.xml file.

To enable direct cloud storage download, follow the steps below:

1. In your binarystore.xml file, for s3 set useSignature to true, for s3-storage-v3 set enableSignedUrlRedirect to true.

2. Set the following parameters in the S3 Binary Provider or AmazonS3 Official SDK Client of your binarystore.xml file:
   

   enableSignedUrlRedirect	Enables the feature for s3-storage-v3
   useSignature	Enables the feature for s3
   signedUrlExpirySeconds	Default: 30 (optional) Specifies the number of seconds that a signed URL provided to a requesting client for direct download from cloud storage is valid.

The following snippet shows an example of how these parameters may look in the S3 Binary Provider of your binarystore.xml file: 

<useSignature>true</useSignature>
<signedUrlExpirySeconds>30</signedUrlExpirySeconds>
<signatureExpirySeconds>300</signatureExpirySeconds>

Specifying Repositories for Direct Download

Artifactory can be configured to redirect requests for direct download at the level of repositories (there is no global configuration to automatically redirect all requests). This allows you to support both clients that support download redirect responses (HTTP 302) as well as those that do not. Download redirection is supported for all repository types - local, remote, virtual, and generic repositories. For local and remote repositories configured for redirection, all requests are redirected. For virtual repositories, it depends which aggregated local or remote repository ultimately provides the requested artifact. If that repository is configured for redirection, then the requesting client will receive the corresponding redirection response, otherwise, Artifactory will fetch the requested artifact and provide it to the client as usual without redirection.

You can configure Artifactory to redirect requests for direct download in the following ways:

• Using the UI 
• Using REST API 
• Using the YAML configuration file 

Using the UI

To configure a local or remote repository to redirect requests for direct download, set the Enable Direct Cloud Storage Download checkbox in the Advanced tab of the repository configuration.

Using the REST API

To configure a local or remote repository to redirect requests for direct download using the REST API, set the downloadRedirect attribute to be true (default, false). For example:

curl -u admin:password -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"rclass":"local", "downloadRedirect": true}' http://localhost:8080/artifactory/api/repositories/s3-generic

Alternatively, you can set the downloadRedirect parameter in the repository configuration JSON to be true. 

Using the YAML Configuration File

If you are configuring repositories using a YAML file, you can use the downloadRedirect attribute. 

For example, to configure a repository called "generic-remote" for direct download:

curl -u admin:password -X PATCH -H "Content-Type: application/yaml" "http://localhost:8080/artifactory/api/system/configuration" -T remote.yaml

where "remote.yaml" is:

remoteRepositories:
	generic-remote:
    	    	downloadRedirect:
        	    	enabled: true

Fine-Tuning Direct Download

One of the benefits of the direct cloud storage downloads feature is that it reduces the load on Artifactory registries when multiple download requests for large artifacts must be served simultaneously. But this benefit is only really realized when the artifacts being downloaded are indeed large. To let you fine-tune Artifactory's behavior with this feature, in Artifactory's General Configuration, you can set the minimal artifact size for which a download request may be redirected for direct cloud storage download using the Minimum Direct Cloud Storage Download Size parameter (the default is 1 MB). 

Getting Through Firewalls

When direct cloud storage downloads are enabled in Artifactory, it means that artifacts requested will actually be served from the S3 or CloudFront domains rather than from Artifactory's domain. Since these domains are constant in the signed URLs Artifactory provides, you should add them to your organization's firewall to enable smooth and unhindered downloads. The domains you should add are:

For S3: https://<bucketName>.s3.amazonaws.com/...

where <bucketName> is the value of the corresponding attribute specified in the S3 Binary Provider of your binarystore.xml file.

For example:

https://data1234.s3.amazonaws.com/myStoreOfBinaries/60/60b27f004e454aca92b0958209cck4829ec52430?response-content-disposition=attachment%3Bfilename%3D%22connector-java-5.1.4.txt%22&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAPLS9HS&Expires=1539374539&Signature=lPDrAHlf

For CloudFront: https://<cloudFrontDomainName>.cloudfront.net/...

where <cloudFrontDomainName> is the value of the corresponding attribute specified in the S3 Binary Provider of your binarystore.xml file.

For example:

https://d2h935dfm2pkds.cloudfront.net/yuval/60/60b27f004e454aca92b0958209cck4829ec52430?response-content-disposition=attachment%3Bfilename%3Djava.jar&Policy=eyJTdGF0ZW1uMzM2ZGZtNnB&Signature=NVmUyUTG~930ub3~mr6~&Key-Pair-Id=APPFSI9VDAF

Using CloudFront (Optional)

To further optimize direct cloud storage downloads, Artifactory lets you specify CloudFront settings which will determine in which locations your artifacts will physically reside which means downloads from your S3 bucket will be via a rapid CDN.

To use CloudFront with direct cloud storage downloads, follow the steps below:

1. Create a CloudFront distribution as described in  Getting Started with CloudFront in the AWS documentation.
2. Generate a key pair as described in  Creating CloudFront Key Pairs for Your Trusted Signersin the AWS documentation.

3. In the AWS console, under CloudFront | Behaviors, set a pattern on the distribution with Forward Query Strings = yes. This allows files to be downloaded using the actual filename as opposed to their SHA1 value.

4. Match up your distribution with your S3 bucket

   i.e. make sure that the distribution points to the same S3 bucket configured in your S3 Binary Provider in your $ARTIFACTORY_HOME/etc/binarystore.xml file.

5. In your binarystore.xml file, for s3 set useSignature to true, or for s3-storage-v3 set enableSignedUrlRedirect to true.

6. Set the following CloudFront parameters in the S3 Binary Provider of your binarystore.xml file:

   cloudFrontDomainName	The unique domain provided by AWS
   cloudFrontKeyPairId	The unique identifier of the key pair you created in step 2 above
   cloudFrontPrivateKey	The private key you created in step 2 above. This should have the following format: ----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY---- ........ -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

   The following snippet shows an example of how these parameters may look in the S3 Binary Provider of your binarystore.xml file:

   <useSignature>true</useSignature>
    <cloudFrontDomainName>d2n9783dfm6kdoq.cloudfront.net</cloudFrontDomainName>
    <cloudFrontKeyPairId>APKPDIVCZ4OS2GY6VMGS</cloudFrontKeyPairId>
    <cloudFrontPrivateKey>-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
    MIIEowIBAAKCAQEAmVbCi33YzIyQMGJkNJN7NbRAEzZIxHv43nmq0b+tDM2CKX+f
   ...........................
   ...........................
    -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
    </cloudFrontPrivateKey>