Allow users to upload files to server via email?

Question

I am administrating a small, private website with 100% trusted users (about 60 people, i know them all personally).

I am having many problems with the PHP based upload system i have in place currently, mainly with users encountering timeout errors and other varying issues due to the way the upload is handled (not to mention the complete deadzone in the UI created by making the user stare blindly at the page until the upload finishes

Anyways, i have been tossing around alternative forms of file uploading i could offer. FTP accounts were nixed due to the level of tech savvy required. Flash/Java uploaders were nixed because i don't really want proprietary third party applets running on my site.

The other idea i came up with that i think would be perfect would be to offer the ability to EMAIL the files to the server. Emailing attachments is a simple enough task, and better yet it provides the user with some tangible feedback to the uploading process.

My question is, how could i go about implementing such a system?

The server is running Gentoo Linux with Apache and i have full root access. Mail dameons can be installed to my needs.

If you have a better way to upload files, perhaps you could offer that instead?

Thanks for your time!

Answer 1

Stick with PHP. It's certainly not perfect but the problems you're describing can probably be handled. max-execution-time and upload_max_filesize are configurable values. I would at least try tweaking those numbers (no php code changes required) before trying to implement an email based solution.

Answer 2

There are several file upload libraries with progress bars using pure javascript. Keep it in PHP.