Sharing an Object

Scenarios

You can share temporary URLs of your objects with others for them to access your objects stored in OBS.

Background Information

File sharing is temporary. All sharing URLs are only valid for a limited period of time.

A temporary URL consists of the access domain name and the temporary authentication information of a file.

The temporary authentication information contains the AccessKeyId, Expires, x-obs-security-token, and Signature parameters. AccessKeyId, x-obs-security-token, and Signature are used for authentication. The Expires parameter specifies the validity period of the authentication.

After an object is shared on OBS Console, the system will generate a URL that contains the temporary authentication information, valid for five minutes since its generation by default. Each time you change the validity period of a URL, OBS obtains the authentication information again to generate a new URL for sharing, which takes effect since the time when the validity period is changed.

Limitations and Constraints

• An object shared from OBS Console can be valid for one minute to 18 hours. If you need a longer validity period, use OBS Browser+ that allows a validity period from one minute to 30 days. Or, you can configure a bucket policy or object policy to grant other users access to the object permanently.
• Only buckets of version 3.0 support object sharing. You can view the bucket version in the Basic Information area on the Overview page of a bucket.
• Encrypted objects cannot be shared.
• To share a cold object, restore it first.

Related Operations

1. In the bucket list, click the bucket you want to operate. The Overview page is displayed.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Objects.
3. In the Operation column of the file to be shared, choose More > Copy Object URL.

   Once a temporary URL is generated, it takes effect and has a validity period of 900s. Within the validity period, anyone can use this temporary URL to access the shared file.