readfile() not working with remote resources - php

Question

So I came at a little problem with a project of mine. We have a bulky server with lots of space as well as a light static storage server that can only be used to store things. We need to make sure only the people who are authenticated can access the resources on the static server, so I thought about making a psuedo-proxy out of readfile(), as we can use allow_url_fopen.
So I tried the following code as a test:
<?php
$type = "video/webm";
$loc = "http://a.pomf.se/fzggfj.webm";
header('Content-Type: '.$type);
header('Content-Length: '.filesize($loc));
readfile($loc);
exit;
This always fails, the browser reads this as corrupted. Interestingly, when you do this:
<?php
$type = "video/webm";
$loc = "../test.webm";
header('Content-Type: '.$type);
header('Content-Length: '.filesize($loc));
readfile($loc);
exit;
It does work, even though the file is the exact same. Does anyone know why readfile will not do this correctly, and explain this to me?
EDIT:
I got the error message from it, it was stuck in the file.
Warning: filesize(): stat failed for http://a.pomf.se/fzggfj.webm in C:\uniform\UniServerZ\www\director.php on line 5
Is filesize() my problem here?

Answer 1

Ok I fixed it. deceze was correct, and filesize was the issue. Let the record show that filesize doesn't work on remote resources I guess.

Answer 2

You need to activate allow_url_fopen by adding allow_url_fopen=1 in your php.ini.

Answer 3

why You aren't downloading video to temporary directory and redirect user to there? (of course You can clear outdated tmp dir later with cron script)
try this:
<?php
$loc = "http://a.pomf.se/fzggfj.webm";
$pathToVideos = dirname(__FILE__).'/tmp/';
$ext = explode('.', $loc);
$ext = end($ext);
$hash = md5($loc);
$filename = $hash.'.'.$ext;
$tmpFile = $pathToVideos.$filename;
if(!is_file($tmpFile)) {
exec('wget -O '.escapeshellarg($tmpFile).' '.escapeshellarg($loc));
}
header('Location: /tmp/'.$filename);
exit(0);