Php external link to image file from internal server - php

Question

I'm stuck and I was hoping somebody here could help me.
I want to create a link to a file in a php script (the file is actually an image, a .tif image). I have Google d this relentlessly, to no avail.
The firewall is blocking external connections but I am running this query on a machine that mimics an internal connection. I currently use this machine to allow external user to run queries that hit the internal database so I know this works…
For instance this part works just fine:
$result = pg_query($conn, $query);
while($row=pg_fetch_assoc($result))
{
echo "<p>image details:<br />image: <u>" . $row['field'] . "</u> image date: <u>" . $row['field'] . "</u> image path: <u>" . $row['filename'] . "</u></p>";
The part of the query that I want to turn into a link is the $row[‘filename’], which is returned as
//host\path\path\path\path\path\path\path.TIF
… but now I want access to certain files associated with those queries. I want to turn this filename into a url that, when put into a link, goes to this file and opens it:
$imageURL = $row['filename'];
echo "<p>Using imageURL: <a href='$imageURL' border='0' target='_blank'>Click Here</a></p>";
Maybe this isn't possible.
I just can't seem to figure out how to fetch the image.
I do not have imagemagick or imagick and I don't want to go that route. Thanks in advance for any help.
EDIT
The machine I am running the query on is http://webapps.example.com
The machine I am querying (where the image resides) is not - the image path I am trying to return (as a link) is //hostipaddress\path\path\path\path\path\path\filename.TIF

Answer 1

You can use a proxy page which you can link to normally which does the job of rendering the image.
Let's call the proxy page readimage.php and it takes the filename or path as an argument.
Your link would look something like this:
<?php
$imageURL = $row['filename'];
echo "<p>Using imageURL: <a href='readimage.php?image=$imageURL' border='0' target='_blank'>Click Here</a></p>";
?>
readimage.php
<?php
$img = isset( $_GET['image'] ) ? $_GET['image'] : null;
if ( !$img )
return;
// Build internal file path
//$filepath = dirname( __FILE__ ) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'myimages' . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . $img;
$filepath = $img;
//==========================
// VERY IMPORTANT TO WHITELIST THE PATH OR RESULT to make sure you're not showing unintended data
//==========================
if ( file_exists( $filepath ) ) {
// Find mime type
$mime = '';
// Try using the fileinfo functions. Requires PHP >= 5.3 and PECL 1.0
if ( function_exists( 'finfo' ) ) {
$finfo = new finfo( FILEINFO_MIME ); // return mime type ala mimetype extension
/* get mime-type for a specific file */
$mime = $finfo->file( $filepath );
}
// No mime yet? Try to use the deprecated mime_content_type() function
if ( !$mime && function_exists( 'mime_content_type' ) ) {
$mime = mime_content_type( $filepath );
}
// Not yet? Fallback to extensions :(
if ( !$mime ) {
$ext = pathinfo( $filepath, PATHINFO_EXTENSION );
switch ( $ext ) {
case "jpg" :
case "jpeg" :
case "jpe" :
$mime = "image/jpg";
break;
case "png" :
case "gif" :
case "bmp" :
case "tiff" :
$mime = "image/" . strtolower( $ext );
break;
}
}
if ( $mime ) {
header( 'Content-type: ' . $mime );
readfile( $filepath );
}
}
?>

Answer 2

If you can have a proxy address that would allow you to send request outside, you could do it using curl.
** update 2
Image from curl
Save image from url with curl PHP
Curl behind a proxy:
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, "http://to.the.proxy.address");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXYPORT, 8080);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD, "your password");