Media storage

Status: placeholder. This guide will be written before launch.

Pavillion stores uploaded media (event images, calendar avatars, banners) on a volume by default. That's fine for small instances. As your instance grows, or if you're running multiple app containers, S3-compatible object storage becomes the better fit. This guide names the choice and covers the migration path.

Planned scope

• The default: a Docker volume mounted at /app/storage/media. What this means for backups, for restoring, for moving servers
• When to switch to S3-compatible storage: more than one app container, media volume getting unwieldy in backups, you want a CDN in front, you don't want media tied to the server's disk
• Supported providers: AWS S3, DigitalOcean Spaces, Backblaze B2, MinIO, anything that speaks the S3 API
• The configuration: S3_BUCKET, S3_REGION, S3_ACCESS_KEY, S3_SECRET_KEY, S3_ENDPOINT for non-AWS providers
• Migrating an existing instance from local to S3 without losing media: the order of operations, the cutover, the "did anything fail to copy" verification step
• The "do not delete the media volume the day you switch to S3" warning — keep it as a fallback until you've verified