Image & File Hosting Service

A simple, lossless file hosting service with a Flask backend and React frontend. Exposeable REST API for uploads and retrieval.

Features

• Upload any file type and get shareable URLs
• Lossless storage (original quality preserved)
• No authentication required
• Public access for all files
• Exposeable API: GET /api for discovery, POST /api/upload for uploads
• Support for all file formats (including video, audio, documents, images, and archives)
• Max file size: 50MB

Project Structure

imageServer/
├── app.py                  # Flask backend
├── requirements.txt        # Python dependencies
├── Procfile               # Railway deployment config
├── railway.json           # Railway configuration
├── runtime.txt            # Python version
├── RAILWAY_DEPLOY.md      # Backend deployment guide
├── VERCEL_DEPLOY.md       # Frontend deployment guide
└── frontend/
    ├── index.html         # Main page
    ├── style.css          # Styling
    ├── script.js          # Upload logic
    └── vercel.json        # Vercel configuration

Local Development

Backend

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Run the server
python app.py

Backend runs on http://localhost:5000

Frontend

Open frontend/index.html in a browser, or use a local server:

cd frontend
python -m http.server 8000

Frontend available at http://localhost:8000

Important: Update API_URL in frontend/script.js to point to your backend URL.

Deployment

Backend (Railway)

See RAILWAY_DEPLOY.md for detailed instructions.

Frontend (Vercel)

See VERCEL_DEPLOY.md for detailed instructions.

How It Works

1. User uploads any file via the frontend (or any client via the API)
2. Client sends the file to POST /upload or POST /api/upload
3. Backend saves the file with a unique UUID filename
4. Backend returns a public URL
5. User can share the URL; files are served via GET /files/<filename> (old /images/<filename> URLs redirect to /files/ for backward compatibility)

Exposeable API

External clients can use the API without the web UI.

GET /api

API discovery: returns endpoints, allowed types, and usage.

Response (example):

{
  "name": "Image & File Hosting API",
  "version": "1.1",
  "base_url": "https://your-backend.railway.app",
  "endpoints": {
    "upload": { "method": "POST", "path": "/api/upload", ... },
    "get_file": { "method": "GET", "path": "/files/<filename>", ... }
  },
  "allowed_types": ["*"]
}

POST /api/upload or POST /upload

Upload any file type.

Request: multipart/form-data with file field (max 50MB)

Response:

{
  "success": true,
  "url": "https://your-backend.railway.app/files/abc123.pdf",
  "filename": "abc123.pdf"
}

GET /files/<filename>

Retrieve any uploaded file.

Response: File with appropriate Content-Type

GET /images/<filename> (legacy)

Redirects to /files/<filename>. Kept so old shared links still work.

Environment Variables

Backend

• PORT - Port to run the server (automatically set by Railway)
• UPLOAD_FOLDER - Directory to store uploads (set to /app/uploads on Railway)
• S3_OBJECT_PREFIX - Optional S3 folder/prefix for new uploads (default: compliance). Reads stay backward-compatible with existing compliance/ objects.

Notes

• Files are stored with no conversion (lossless/original)
• Files are renamed with UUID to prevent conflicts
• CORS is enabled for all origins
• Railway volumes ensure persistent storage across deployments
• Use GET /api from scripts or tools to discover the API programmatically