dynamic folder creation

[onressy]

Hi, I would like to create a new folder in IIS6 for every new subscriber that signs up on my site. I was wondering what the pro and cons of this are in terms of security and would i be using the File Scripting Object to create the folders? Thnaks

 

[Tarwn]

The security would depend on what your doing with the folders and if you were using the built-in, default IIS user or using windows authentication.
Yes, you would likely be using the File Scripting Object to build the folders.

What are you planning on doing with the files/folders? It's possible that there might be a solution other than creating a folder for every new user that would work, but it's hard to tell without knowing what purpose your aiming for.

 

[onressy]

In terms of the folders, I'm storing user infomration that they will upload to the folder, infomration like Word Documents, excel, and possibly pictures. I thought about having 1 folder with an upload file naming convention that matched the username, but i was worried about performance in the folder grows too large.

 

[Sheco]

I saw something like this once where they ended up with 25,000 subfolders and everyone was like "no don't click on THAT folder" because just opening it would bring the server to its knees.

 

[onressy]

so do you think that 25,000 files in one folder is better that 5,000 folders with 5,000 files in each?

 

[theniteowl]

You would probably be better off using a database and uploading the files into the database. It would be much easier to keep track of large numbers of users and their files and would present fewer security problems.

Security is getting tighter in more recent versions of IIS and the default locks down file system access from scripts so you may have to jump through some hoops to make that work.

A database is designed to efficiently move through large amounts of data to find what it needs. The OS of the server is not nearly so efficient as evidenced by what happens when you just bring focus to a folder containing a large number of files.

To use FSO to create the folders you will need to ensure that shell is available for the local server account to use and that the account has appropriate privledges in the folders it needs to operate in.
I believe shell is disabled in IIS 6 by default and the appropriate DLLs will have to be registered and execution privledges given to the file.


At my age I still learn something new every day, but I forget two others.