MySQL database with an encrypted filesystem to store images - mysql

I am busy building an application that stores images of users in a filesystem,which can then be accessed by the database.
As the images should be confidential, is there a way to encrypt the filesystem and be able to link to the images from the database?
I am using PHP, MySQL, Apache, Windows.
Thank you for your time!

This is not a MySQL problem. You should store file references in your MySQL tables and handle the file encryption yourself. IOW, your app should encrypt and decrypt the images at the application level and only these encrypted files should be moved around and stored. Only the app can then display the contents of an image file. No plain readable form of the image appears anywhere else.

Related

Managing Large Databases of Images

I started working on a side project during the night. And it requires me to use large amounts of images, similar to Instagram, what do you recommend using as a database for this?
Should I upload the file to a path and referenced it from the database? Or should I use another type of database and upload the pictures there?
Thanks
"Should I upload the file to a path and referenced it from the database" - yes. Storing objects in mysql like that as a blob is bad practice. Put them in a directory somewhere and reference the path from your database of choice.. mysql is fine.
It won't be a good idea to store image directly in DB. DB size will increase. DB Hit will increase. So better store image as file in server and store the reference path in DB.
For Detailed Info :- Storing Images in DB - Yea or Nay?

Upload images on mysql

I am working on a social networking site and i would like some help. I want the users of the site to upload images on mysql database. (I am using jsp pages). Any ideas?
You can, although it's generally a bad idea.
It's better to store the images somewhere on your server and store the image's path in the database instead, where you can save it along with other data (e.g. information regarding the uploading user).
If you insist, store it using this type:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/blob.html
Here's an example.

Is it bad to store images as Data URIs in a database BLOB?

I'm creating a mobile app that views articles. These articles are just simple html with a couple of images each. I am currently storing everything in a database. Later, I will need to save the articles locally to the device in an easy format. For this reason, I have opted to store the Base64 images within the database, using a Data URI Scheme (look here for info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_URI_scheme).
My question is: is it okay to store this much data in one database entry? I have a table that is ONLY for these large records, with article meta data tables that point to these. Would it be better if I used TEXT fields, rather than BLOBs?
If it helps, I am using MySQL with the InnoDB engine.
Avoiding using the db to store images is a good practice, keeping the images in the db not only slows down your db performance it also increases it size and backups, if you are using cloud service then there is also the cost issue.
Use S3 or Azure for this purpose and have only the url of the images in your db.Files may be uploaded directly to to the storage service reducing load on your db server. The only thing left to do is for your mobile application to connect both this services(db and the Images service),i found this web tool to manage my mobile app db because it connect to my Images cloud service which is Azure but i think they also support Amazon S3.
Another option would be to store images in something like:
Amazon S3
and then just have a field in your database that stored the url for each image.
As long as you dont have a DB as big as facebook or similar it should be fine.
It is best to store just the path to the image and the image themselves in a folder.
hope that helps
You could also look into Azure Blob Storage. I've been using it and it's working very well.

Better store images on server or image strings on database?

i'm developing an android app where the user can take a photo. The app will have to upload it. I'm new of servers/databases. What's better? Store the image file "image.jpg" on the server or store the image string, encoded with base64, in MySQL db?
Are there other strategies?
CONSIDER THAT i will have to reload the image to visualize it on the phone.
i think better way is to store the images in a folder on the server and store their link in database..
Reasons
1) Normally time required to perform file operations is less than time required to perform database operations.
2) Updating the image is easy because its stored in file system which prevents the update operation on database which takes more time.
I think it is not a good idea to store image string in database instead of just its path (image name). Store your image on server and its name or path in database. Because retrieving image string from db and creating image for it each time you need that image is expensive. So better store its name only in server.

download image directory from server and store on iphone

I am trying to create a business directory application for my area, I am currently trying to create a sql DB with all of the realivant business information (name, address, opening hours etc). I am then plan to have a physical file directory where all logo images are stored, this directory will be stored somewhere on the server.
When the user starts the applicatoin they will be prompted to download all of the information on business listings (because its for a small community), I will then upload all of the data to the phone using NSURLConnection, the data will be Zlib NSData in the form of XML. I will store all of this data into coredata (which will act as the apps cache).
The next step is to download the directory of images I have stored on the DB.. but I have no idea on the best approach for this and would like some guidance, example code etc.
For instance would it be better to store the images into the sqlDB? I have read this is a bad idea so am trying the approach explained above.
I am still in the process of building the sqlDB but the difficulty I am having is comming up with a way to get the images onto the device and relate them to the correct business using an id field or something simlar.. or is there an easier way to do this?
any help would be appreciated.
Instead of storing the image directly in the DB, you could store the URL to access the image binary instead. This would maintain the relationship with the image without storing the large image data directly in the DB. You could then use the URL retrieved from the DB to download the image on the device and similarly store the path to the downloaded cached image in core data.