Curl and php download file from url not working - php

Question

I'm trying do retrieve and download a file (image) from a remote location.
Inside the php.ini the allow_url_fopen is enabled, but i can't download the image.
Code i'm using is described below
$local_file = "test.jpg";
$remote_file = "http://somehost:6346/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=snapPicture2&usr=xxxx&pwd=xxxx";
$ch = curl_init();
$fp = fopen ($local_file, 'w+');
$ch = curl_init($remote_file);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 50);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "");
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
fclose($fp);
with any other url that contains a real jpg file, it's working perfectly, i suppose that the issue is that the url use some special characters that doesn't like to curl.
If i try to execute the php snippet above,page load for almost 1 minute,and it seems that no error are displayed,the image test.jpg is created, but it's empty.
Do you have any suggestion?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Try this
$local_file = "test.jpg";
$remote_file = "http://somehost:6346/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=snapPicture2&usr=xxxx&pwd=xxxx";
function getPage($url) {
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $result;
}
function saveToFile($base, $decode=false, $output_file)
{
$ifp = fopen($output_file, "wb");
if ($decode){
fwrite($ifp, base64_decode($base));
}else{
fwrite($ifp, $base);
}
fclose($ifp);
return($output_file);
}
$remote_page = getPage($remote_file);
$saved_file = saveToFile($remote_page , false, $local_file);

Answer 2

when debugging issues like this, set CURLOPT_VERBOSE, it will probably reveal why the page loaded for almost 1 minute, with no apparent output.
i suppose that the issue is that the url use some special characters - this is fully possible, for example your username and password, they're supposed to be urlencoded. urlencoding is binary safe, meaning you can have any special characters you'd like, you just need to encode it properly. use urlencode() or http_build_query() for that, eg
$remote_file = "http://somehost:6346/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?" . http_build_query ( array (
'cmd' => 'snapPicture2',
'usr' => 'username',
'pwd' => 'password'
) );
now http_build_query will properly urlencode any special characters in your username and password (for example, if your username is an email address, the # becomes %40).
if that doesn't fix it, what does CURLOPT_VERBOSE say?
also, final note, here you're sending the download request with credentials in a GET request. that's very unusual, the vast majority of websites want you to login with a POST request, and there are good security-related reasons for that, are you sure your website allows sending credentials in GET parameters? the vast majority of websites doesn't allow it... (and the best way to find out, is to record a browser logging in, does the browser use GET parameters, or POST parameters?)