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VIP File System

On the VIP Platform, media files that are uploaded or imported to a WordPress site are not stored in a filesystem that is local to the web container. Instead, an API is used to store the files in a separate read-only service called the VIP File System.

The VIP File System is an external, globally distributed object store that provides high performance access to media files. Requested content is served from the same domain as the WordPress site, which can cause some third-party performance scans to not recognize VIP’s content delivery network (CDN).

Files on the VIP File System are cached by NGINX with a Cache-Control HTTP header set to cache-control: max-age=31536000 (1 year). This cannot be modified. Cached content for media files can be purged by resource URL in the VIP Dashboard or with the VIP-CLI command vip cache purge-url.

All common operations, including uploads, cropping, editing, and deleting, work as expected through the WordPress Admin dashboard.

  • Import media files

    Media can be imported to the VIP File System with VIP-CLI. This is especially useful for the process of migrating a WordPress site to the VIP Platform.

  • Overwriting and versioning files

    Files that are stored on the VIP File System can be overwritten programmatically or with VIP-CLI. Overwriting a file is useful for eliminating the need to set a redirect to a newer version of the file.

  • The /uploads path structure

    All of the contents of a WordPress site’s /wp-content/uploads/ directory are mapped to the VIP File System.

  • Shared media files

    Media files that are uploaded or imported to a WordPress production environment are automatically shared with and available to that application’s associated non-production environments.

  • Image file behavior

    Image files that are located within a site’s /uploads/ directory are served by the VIP File System and have several default behaviors.

  • Media Backups

    A backup copy of all media files that are associated with a WordPress environment can be downloaded from within the application view of the VIP Dashboard.

  • Working with uploaded files

    The VIP File System is read-only, but some methods exist to programmatically access and interact with the media files that are stored there.

  • Working with the /tmp directory

    The system temp directory (/tmp) is a local, writeable path on an application’s web servers that is most commonly used to perform local manipulations to temporary files.

Last updated: January 01, 2026

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  • WordPress