Overview

Digital Ocean Spaces is an S3-compatible object storage service perfect for serving installers, providing:

CDN integration for fast global downloads
250GB storage + 1TB transfer for $5/month
Additional transfer at $0.01/GB
Signed URLs for secure, time-limited access

Setup Steps

1. Create a Space

Go to Digital Ocean Console
Click "Create Space"
Configure:
- Choose datacenter: Select region close to your users (e.g., NYC3)
- Enable CDN: Yes (recommended)
- Space name: rmm-installers (or your preferred name)
- File listing: Disabled (keep private)
- CDN custom subdomain: Optional (e.g., cdn.yourdomain.com)

2. Generate API Keys

Go to API → Spaces access keys
Click "Generate New Key"
Name: "RMM Backend API"
Save the keys securely:
- Access Key ID: DO_SPACES_KEY
- Secret Access Key: DO_SPACES_SECRET

3. Configure Environment Variables

Add to your backend .env or DO App Platform environment:

USE_DO_SPACES=true
DO_SPACES_KEY=your_access_key_here
DO_SPACES_SECRET=your_secret_key_here
DO_SPACES_BUCKET=rmm-installers
DO_SPACES_REGION=nyc3
DO_SPACES_ENDPOINT=nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com
DO_SPACES_CDN_ENDPOINT=cdn.yourdomain.com  # Optional
CLEANUP_AFTER_UPLOAD=true  # Delete local files after upload

4. Set Up Folder Structure

Recommended structure in your Space:

rmm-installers/
├── installers/
│   ├── public/
│   │   ├── agent/
│   │   │   └── dev-agent.exe
│   │   └── bootstrapper/
│   │       └── bootstrapper.exe
│   ├── tenant-123/
│   │   ├── bootstrapper/
│   │   │   └── bootstrapper_tenant-123.exe
│   │   ├── agent/
│   │   │   └── agent_tenant-123_v1.0.0.exe
│   │   └── tray/
│   │       └── tray_tenant-123.exe
│   └── tenant-456/
│       └── ...
└── plugins/
    └── ...

5. Configure CDN (Optional but Recommended)

If you enabled CDN:

Custom Domain (optional):
- Add CNAME record: cdn.yourdomain.com → rmm-installers.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com
- Update DO_SPACES_CDN_ENDPOINT to your custom domain
Cache Settings:
- Default TTL: 3600s (1 hour)
- Installers rarely change, so longer TTL is fine

6. Test the Setup

Upload a test file:

# Using spacesService
const spacesService = require('./services/spacesService');
await spacesService.uploadFile('./test.txt', 'test/test.txt');

Generate a signed URL:

const url = spacesService.getSignedUrl('test/test.txt', 3600);

console.log('Signed URL:', url);

7. Migration Strategy

Option A: Gradual Migration

Keep existing API serving functional
Enable USE_DO_SPACES=true
New builds upload to Spaces and redirect
Old builds still serve from local storage
Gradually cleanup local files

Option B: Full Migration

Upload all existing installers to Spaces:
# Script to bulk upload

cd backend/downloads

for file in *.exe; do

node -e "

const spaces = require('../services/spacesService');

spaces.uploadFile('./$file', 'installers/public/legacy/$file');

"

done
Enable USE_DO_SPACES=true
Set CLEANUP_AFTER_UPLOAD=true
Remove local downloads directory from git

8. Security Best Practices

Private ACL: All objects default to private
Signed URLs: Generate time-limited URLs (default 1 hour)
Key Rotation: Rotate API keys periodically
Firewall: Restrict API key usage to your backend IP if possible
Monitoring: Enable Space metrics in DO console

9. Cost Estimation

Base Cost: $5/month includes:

250 GB storage
1 TB outbound transfer

Additional Costs:

Storage: $0.02/GB/month above 250GB
Transfer: $0.01/GB above 1TB

Example Scenarios:

100 installers × 50MB each = 5GB storage: $5/month
1000 downloads/month × 50MB = 50GB transfer: $5/month
10,000 downloads/month × 50MB = 500GB transfer: $5/month (within 1TB limit)

10. Monitoring & Maintenance

Check Space Usage:

const objects = await spacesService.listObjects('installers/');

console.log(`Total objects: ${objects.length}`);

Cleanup Old Installers:

// Keep last 5 versions per tenant

await spacesService.cleanupOldInstallers('tenant-123', 5);

Admin Endpoints:

List installers: GET /api/download/admin/list-installers/:tenantId
Cleanup: POST /api/download/admin/cleanup-installers/:tenantId

11. Troubleshooting

Issue: Uploads fail with "Access Denied"

Solution: Verify API keys are correct and have Spaces permissions

Issue: Signed URLs don't work

Solution: Check Space is not set to public file listing

Issue: Slow downloads

Solution: Ensure CDN is enabled and using correct endpoint

Issue: High bandwidth costs

Solution: Increase signed URL cache time, enable browser caching

12. Rollback Plan

If issues occur:

Set USE_DO_SPACES=false in environment
Restart backend
System reverts to serving from local storage
No data loss (local files still exist if CLEANUP_AFTER_UPLOAD=false)

Integration Complete!

Your installer serving is now: ✅ Scalable to millions of downloads ✅ CDN-accelerated globally ✅ Secure with time-limited access ✅ Cost-effective at $5/month base ✅ Easy to maintain and monitor