Storage Providers

Sentinel stores two kinds of data outside the database: file uploads (from Forms with uploads enabled) and database snapshots (see Backups & Recovery). Each is configured independently — you can send uploads to S3 while keeping snapshots local, for example.

This page covers the storage provider for uploads; see Backups & Recovery for the equivalent SNAPSHOTS_STORAGE_* variables.

Local file system (default)

STORAGE_PROVIDER=local
STORAGE_LOCAL_DIR=uploads

Files are stored under {DATA_DIR}/storage by default — make sure this is on a persistent volume, or uploads won't survive a container restart.

AWS S3 (and S3-compatible)

Works with AWS S3 as well as S3-compatible services like MinIO or Cloudflare R2:

STORAGE_PROVIDER=s3
STORAGE_S3_URL=https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/?bucket=my-bucket&prefix=uploads

Or with discrete credentials: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, AWS_REGION, alongside bucket/prefix/region as URL parameters.

Azure Blob Storage

STORAGE_PROVIDER=azure
STORAGE_AZURE_CONTAINER=my-container
STORAGE_AZURE_CONNECTION_STRING=...

Related

• Backups & Recovery — the separate, snapshot-specific storage configuration.
• ENV Variables — full variable reference.
• Install on Azure App Services and Install on AWS ECS — platform-specific persistence setup.