No clue how to use this as a CDN

  • Resolved danryinc

    (@danryinc)


    9 years, 11 months ago

    Hi there,

    I initially wanted to go with MaxCDN but because the caching plugin they require conflicts with Varnish I could not. I’ve gone with Dreamhost’s CDN but the experience has been far lass than user friendly.

    Questions:

    1. How do you get previously uploaded content (uploaded via wordpress) into the cdn?

    2. When you use the upload feature in this plugin where does that content go and how is it accessed as it relates to WordPress?

    3. I’ve read that a change should be made within WordPress to target a new CDN domain instead of having it target the master server? Is this the case and if so how is this done?

    4. Is there any additional coding (outside of what the plugin does) that needs to be added to get things functioning properly.

    I realize that very little of what I have asked about here is relevant to the plugin but DH support says that this is the only avenue to get your attention.

    Thanks

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/dreamobjects/

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Plugin Author Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    9 years, 11 months ago

    Answer to all: You don’t.

    It’s not a CDN. It’s a backup tool. I’m updating the readme to make that abundantly clear (and DH support did mention that).

    The uploader (which is being deprecated) is just a tool to upload a file to a bucket. That’s all. It’s not very good at that either, which is why I’m getting rid of it.

    There will be a separate plugin for CDN things which will take care of all of that, but it required some major changes to the code, which this plugin simply cannot do right now. When that plugin for CDN is done, it’ll be hosted here 🙂 For now, it’s in a totally beta beta beta place, so I don’t really thing it’s fair to have everyone use it :/

    Thread Starter danryinc

    (@danryinc)

    9 years, 11 months ago

    Hi Mika,

    That’s well and fine but Dreamhost is claiming that they sell a CDN: http://wiki.dreamhost.com/DreamSpeed_CDN_Overview
    http://www.dreamhost.com/cloud/dreamspeedcdn

    It was also reinforced in an earlier tech thread that it (Dream Objects – not this specific plugin) is a CDN. Now I could have told you and the support guys BEFORE posting here that this was not a question for you because the WordPress app is not set up for it. I even told the support team that.

    I realize that this product (and the idea that it could be used as a CDN) is not ready for primetime. My question for you, the support team and the product team is why am I (the customer) being sent off in every direction to figure that out? I’m seriously surprised that you guys are this scrambled.

    My biggest question (now that you have reinforced that I should not be using this product) is what do I do now? Varnish will not let me use another CDN that runs off of a different caching plugin. Please-please-please don’t tell me that this isn’t the venue for this question because I’ve been getting the runaround for two days now.

    Thanks

    Plugin Author Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    9 years, 11 months ago

    I understand your confusion. My greatest regret is in what I named this plugin because that happens. You keep saying ‘DreamObjects’ and it’s jumbled with “Which one? The plugin? The CDN? The Cloud Storage?”

    That’s reason #2 why the CDN plugin will be separate by the way… It’ll be called “DreamSpeed CDN” to make it bloody clear that IT is the CDN 🙂

    My question for you, the support team and the product team is why am I (the customer) being sent off in every direction to figure that out?

    Because you didn’t actually ask that, and we’re not mind readers. In retrospect, I do see what you were asking, but … well we take things at face value 🙂 What you’ve asked DreamHost support (and me) is “I’ve installed this plugin, how do I use the plugin as a CDN.”

    DreamHost TS rightly pointed out that the plugin is officially supported here, and not via tickets there (I know it’s weird), but also that the plugin ‘DreamObjects Connection’ does not offer CDN compatibility.

    Which … I told you. And they told you. And from our end we’re confused because you keep asking ‘But how do I use the plugin?!’ and we keep telling you the truth: you cannot use THIS plugin as a CDN.

    Now. If you’re trying to ask us “Is there any plugin I can use to hook WordPress into DreamSpeed as a CDN?” the answer is “Not yet.” That’s what I’m working on 🙂

    Also to clarify. You’re totally not locked in to OUR CDN! Yikes! That would suck!

    Varnish will not let me use another CDN that runs off of a different caching plugin.

    I’m guessing you’re on DreamPress (I did not deep dive into your account, I’ve been trying to … well write the CDN plugin today)? Sure it will! You can install W3TC, for example, and only activate the stuff for CDN and it’ll work. Not with DreamSpeed as a CDN at the moment, but you can use AmazonS3 and everything else. We would never lock you in to ONE product! How Microsoft. Yick.

    Thread Starter danryinc

    (@danryinc)

    9 years, 11 months ago

    Thanks Mika.

    I’m definitely willing to admit that I’m not entirely up on all of the different products and names you guys offer. I saw that there was a CDN service offered but I think my understanding of what CDN does and what you guys can presently offer might be different.

    I am running Dreampress and have been told a few times by support that running any caching program alongside Varnish will wreck havoc. I’m going to follow your guidance and go for it.

    I’ve worked with a ton of coders and tech folks in the past so I totally understand stating things as clearly as possible (as things often get taken at face value). My only point to that is that (being that many of your customers are probably not tech savy) it might not be best practices to have customers guess their way through how a product is supposed to work for them.

    I arrived at the plugin via a wiki on how to set up to use a CDN. There were not stoppers to keep me from assuming things would just work. It’s just makes things much easier (on everyone involved) to assume everyone is dumb and give them an easy path to get things done rather than to assume that knowledge or luck will lead them into the best end result. Typically Dreamhost has been stellar at making things simple to use/integrate. Hopefully this product will go that way too.

    Thanks

    Plugin Author Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    9 years, 11 months ago

    Right! Caching != CDN 🙂 I mean… yes, kind of but not really.

    FWIW? You’re not dumb 🙂 This is the weirdest stuff I work with and it’s just crazy wrapping your head around it.

    I had thought I was clear on the plugin page that it can and cannot do, and why, but it may be information overload. I’m mid-3.5 re-write at the moment, so I’ll add in that info to try and make it more clear. You caught us mid-stream, and I’ll circle back with Seohee (who’s manning the wiki revamp) to get that spelled out a little better there too 🙂

    I am running Dreampress and have been told a few times by support that running any caching program alongside Varnish will wreck havoc. I’m going to follow your guidance and go for it.

    They’re right. Caching plugins other than the Varnish one (which … I also maintain!) aren’t supported, but can work. We just (as you noted) don’t have a slew of super-Jorbins (hi Aaron, happy birthday) on DreamPress. They’re not the audience. People who ‘get’ what Varnish is, probably want a VPS or Dedi 🙂

    But. Just because we say “no no, it’ll be hard and dangerous!” doesn’t mean you can’t. We just try to discourage it since, as you noted again, skill level being what it is.

    The weird thing with W3TC, and why I grabbed it as an example, is that it also has a CDN aspect! And I kind of disagree with the ‘One big plugin’ approach (though it would have made my life easier on many levels). I’d initially thought I’d do DreamObjects the Plugin as “Everything!” but the more we built out the CDN the less and less that seemed sustainable or smart.

    So let’s step back. From a WordPress perspective, there are two kinds of CDNs.

    1) A CDN that uploads all my media to the cloud
    2) A CDN that uploads my CSS and JS and static content to the cloud

    DreamSpeed is meant for #1 right now, especially because VARNISH (see?) does #2 😀 I’m cheating at scrabble here, because I know DreamPress users are the best candidate for DreamSPEED so I’m skewing my build that way.

    If, today, you want to use DreamSpeed CDN on your site, there isn’t a plugin that does that which is officially released. If you were, say, to visit my GitHub page, you might see a plugin in beta. It’s 10000% use at your own risk, and is being actively banged on and broken and fixed daily. Except not today, I needed a break.

    If you want to use any other CDN, like AmazonS3, you can use https://wordpress.org/plugins/amazon-s3-and-cloudfront/ (which is the hands down best CDN media ONLY plugin, and the one I’m forking and customizing for DreamSpeed). And yes, it works on DreamPress 🙂 I tested it.

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