nextcloud / nextcloud/server

Don't proxy S3 links

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#14,675 6 comments 45 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@CarlSchwan is already working on this.

Since Aug 27, 2025.

1. to develop enhancement feature: dav feature: external storage feature: object storage hotspot: file transfer performance performance 🚀
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Description

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
There is a use case for allowing files to be downloaded directly from S3 instead of being proxied by the instance that is running NextCloud. The first and biggest pro for this is cost reduction. The transfer from S3 to the internet is much much lower than from EC2 to the internet. The second pro is speed. S3 will serve the file as fast as possible, while your EC2 instance will server the file at a speed that could vary because of the CPU usage, network usage, instance type, etc...

Describe the solution you'd like
It should be possible to let users access S3 files directly, instead of making the NextCloud download them from S3 and then serve them to the user.
Also, for security reasons, links can be signed with a 1 minute expiration. This way files can be served only to logged in users.

Describe alternatives you've considered
N/A

Additional context
This feature requests is based on the premise that NextCloud is configured to use S3 and that the administrator has turned off end-to-end encryption.

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