Easier Hosting

There are a couple of new features to tell you about this week;  One will be discussed here today, and the other will be in another post in a couple of days.

Rdbhost has always been flexible about where you can host your website's static files:  You can host them on any static server, including free servers, on Localhost for development, and even on GitHub or Assembla for git-commit ease of deployment.  Your SQL database account can be accessed using the JavaScript/jQuery module, from any host.

Static Hosting

You can also host your static content here at Rdbhost.  While we do not make file space available to our customers (we are a Database hosting service!), we do provide a facility to put file contents into database blobs, and those blobs can be retrieved using natural short URLs.  Your static content can be hosted in static 'pseudo-file's, and the dynamic content in SQL database tables.

SFTP Server

The new feature makes these pseudo files easier to manage.  We now support an SFTP server, for managing your static content.   This server is on port 24 at www.rdbhost.com, and functions like any other SFTP server, except that the files you manipulate are actually just blobs in the pseudofiles table.  The server also uses 'magic' to determine the correct mime-type for the content you store; when you retrieve the blobs from a browser or other web client, the stored mime-type is sent as the Content-Type header.


The SFTP server uses account and password logins only; the login is your Super role-name (such as 's0000000907'), and the corresponding authcode.  These are available on your Roles page.  To create the 'lookup.pseudofiles' table to start, enter a domain alias from the profile page;  You should have a domain registered for the new site.  Setting the domain alias tells Rdbhost.com that you intend to serve static content under that domain.

Quirks

In minor ways, this SFTP server is different than others you have use.

The server will maintain empty directories during an SFTP session, but they are forgotten at the end of the session.  Similarly, file attributes can be changed, but the changes are forgotten at the end of the session; the 'files' are always readable to the public, and writable by the Super account only (unless you have granted specific privileges otherwise).

Testing

The SFTP client has been tested with the following clients:
   WinSCP 5.1.2
   Expandrive 2.4.0
   CoreFTP LE 2.2
   BitKinex 3.2.3


The RdbAdmin utility is an alternative way to enter data into the psuedofiles table.

See User Domains
       RdbAdmin Video
       SFTP Server