I want to allow the user to download a file up to 1GB in size, but according to my code only a file of 113MB can be downloaded...
header('Content-type: application/zip');
//open/save dialog box
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="check.zip"');
//read from server and write to buffer
readfile('check.zip');
Can anyone tell me how to download a larger file?
I'm going to guess from what you've said that you're getting an "out of memory" error.
In that case, perhaps this note from the documentation might be of interest:
Note:
readfile() will not present any memory issues, even when sending large files, on its own. If you encounter an out of memory error ensure that output buffering is off with ob_get_level().
So, check ob_get_level() and call ob_end_flush() if necessary to stop output buffering.
Alternatively, you could do something like this:
$f = fopen("check.zip","rb");
while(!feof($f)) {
echo fgets($f);
flush();
}
Another option is this:
header("Location: check.zip");
This will redirect the browser to the check.zip file. Since it's a download, the existing page won't be affected. You can even output the rest of a page to say something like "Your download will begin momentarily" to the user.
Either read and echo the file a chunk at a time, or use something like mod_sendfile to make it Not Your Problem.
Increase your file write buffer chunk size to maximum of file. That will decrease the utilization of resources and your download works fine.
Edit:
Use HTML5 webworkers to download large. Webworkers works in background so you can able to download large files.
Related
I'm having a download abuse issue with php Content-Disposition: attachment and readfile. It seems that my problem is with readfile, because although this script works, whether or not the client closes their browser, readfile reads the entire contents of the mp4, setting up the possibility of abuse with scripts initiating the download and immediately closing the progress. Something, somewhere, is running a script which clicks this link hundreds of times per second, running my php script and immediately cancelling their download, but my server is preparing that entire file to be offloaded each time.
Here's the script I'm running, when the user/abuser clicks a download link:
<?php
// get MP4 address
$MP4Address = $_GET["MP4Address"];
// We'll be outputting a MOV
header( 'Content-Type: application/octet-stream' );
$filename = basename($MP4Address);
// Name file
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$filename.'"');
// Source file
readfile($MP4Address);
?>
I suspect that readfile is the culprit here, but without it, the client will receive an empty file. There must be a more modern, proper way of doing this, but I'm not sure what it could be.
Unless you've called ignore_user_abort(true) PHP should get the signal that the connection has been aborted and cease execution. But it's possible that once you're inside the readfile() call PHP is not able to watch for that signal since it's busy doing low-level IO.
I would say you've got 2 options, the first being to simply write some code to detect and block the person that's abusing your service. You downloads are already backed by a PHP script, so adding in a bit of checking and filtering should be relatively simple.
The other would be to replace the readfile() call with a bit of [admittedly less efficient] code that should give PHP some breathing space to look for user aborts.
function read_file($filename, $chunksize=4096) {
if( ! $fh = fopen($filename, 'rb') ) {
throw new \Exception('Failed to open file');
}
while($chunk = fread($fh, $chunksize)) {
echo $chunk;
}
fclose($fh);
}
I need to get a remote file and give it to user without saving it to my server disk (for hiding original URL) and found a lot of posts about download external files with various functions like file_get_contents or readfile. Already I'm using this one:
function startDownload($url){
if($this->url_exists($url))
{
//get filename from url
$name=$this->getFileName($url);
//first flush clear almost output
ob_end_flush();
//final clear
ob_clean();
//set headers
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: Binary");
header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"" . $name . "\"");
//send file to client;
readfile($url);
//exit command is important
exit;
}
else JFactory::getApplication()->enqueueMessage(JText::_('URL_NOT_FOUND'), 'error');
}
And that's working but there is a problem! For a file with 200 MB size it takes ~ 10 seconds to start download in client browser. I think it's because readfile first downloads whole file to my server buffer and then give it to user. Is that right?
And is it possible to make it faster? for example download be started before fetch ended or it isn't possible technically?
In fact I don't know that this method is optimised or not. Any technical advice would be appreciated.
Note :
I know that this function should be changed for big files and that's not my concern now.
I consider to buy the external server in the same datacenter to make this download faster.
Target is that [File server] be separate than the file [online shop].
I tested curl method that mentioned by #LawrenceCherone. It worked nicely but when moved it to my project the result was the same as readfile (white screen for a few seconds).
So suspect to readfile() function. Separate my previous code to a single PHP file and result was amazing! Download starts immediately.
So I think my guess wasn't right and problem was not related to readfile function.
After a little search found a minor modification. I added below line :
while (ob_get_level()) ob_end_clean();
before the :
readfile($url);
And now download starts before whole file fetched in my server.
I'm using shared hosting(hostgator).
I have site with video content like youtube written in php.
Implemented via direct links to mp4 files and html video tag.
I want to limit connections for file downloads(plays) to around 350.
Because if I have more than ~350 connections hostgator blocks my site.
Is there any way to do that?
Any other suggestions how to deal with this situation will also be helpful.
You could use a php script which handles the actual file download. If the script is executed, increment your download counter and if the file is sent completely to the client, close the connection.
To detect if the file is completely sent, you should send the file in small chunks and check after each transmitted chunk, if the connection is still open.
To do this
send the correct mime-types and http headers
use ignore_user_abort to keep the script running if the client closes the connection
send the file in small chunks and check after each chunk if the connection is still alive. ob_flush and flush are used to keep the output buffer empty. connection_status or connection_aborted to test if the connection is still open.
after the whole file is submited, decrement your connection counter
In addition to this, you might also implement HTTP_RANGE, to resume incomplete downloads. This should be important especially for video downloads, if you want to seek somewhere in the middle of the stream.
Below a little .htaccess that rewrite all the requests for the PHP file.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^ yourFile.php [L]
</IfModule>
Below the PHP file
// code to increment the counter..
// increment_counter(); ...
// Use the request path (URI) to choose what file to send.
$filename = 'video.mp4';
$size = filesize($filename);
$f = fopen($filename, 'rb');
if (!$f) {
// error...
}
ignore_user_abort(true);
set_time_limit(0);
header("Content-Length: $size");
header("Content-Type: video/mp4");
while (!feof($f)) {
echo fread($f, 8192);
ob_flush();
flush();
if (connection_status() != 0) {
// download aborted... decrement the counter
// decrement_counter(); ...
break;
}
}
fclose($f);
// download completed - decrement counter
// decrement_counter(); ...
This script is pretty simple, but should give you an idea. You might add more logic (as said above HTTP_RANGE) or send other headers, but this should give you a good starting point.
References:
Below the links to the documentation of the functions that could be less known.
connection_status
ignore_user_abort
I have a file with no extension on it, but I know it's a tiff. I want to be able to download this file via PHP.
I created a page with a link to another php page, which has the following content:
<?php
$imgPath = 'http://server/23700-b074137f-eb5c-45d6-87c2-13c96812345b';
header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=invoice.tiff");
header("Content-type: image/tiff");
readfile($imgPath);
?>
When I click the link, I get a prompt to download invoice.tiff, but it's 0 bytes.
However, if I rename the file on the server to 23700-b074137f-eb5c-45d6-87c2-13c96812345b.tiff (and change the $imgPath), it works.
How do I accomplish this without renaming the file to include the extension?
It's possible the 'tiff' extension is registered as a known file type on the server, so when you rename and request the tiff it's permissions will allow you to open it. However, with no extension, the security is probably stopping you from reading it, as mentioned by 'Mike B' above. To check this try just entering the file name in your browser address bar and see if it opens, both with and without the 'tiff' extension. There is no workaround for getting past the security issue, short of changing the severs security which would be very bad.
You are retrieving the file from a URL, therefore activating the 'fopen wrappers' in readfile. In general, you should not do this, especially when working locally since it invokes a lot of unnecessary overhead and (in this case) unwanted 'magic' behaviour.
Just use readfile on the local path to the file, and it'll be fine, or use die(file_get_contents($imgPath)) instead of the last line to circumvent PHP's native behaviour.
It works for me:
$imgPath = 'http://server/23700-b074137f-eb5c-45d6-87c2-13c96812345b';
$f = fopen($imgPath, "r");
header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=invoice.tiff");
header("Content-type: image/tiff");
fpassthru($f);
You should also add the content-length header like so:
// untested code
header('Content-Length: '.strlen(stream_get_contents($imgPath)));
I'm currently looking into a way of showing the file download status on a page.
I know this isnt needed since the user usually has a download status in the browser, but I would like to keep the user on the page he is downloading from, as long as the download is lasting. To do that, the download status should match the status the file actually has (not a fake prograss bar). Maybe it will also display the speed the user is downloading at, and estimate the time it will take, depending on the current download rate.
Can this be done using PHP and Javascript? Or does it realy require Flash or Java?
Should not somewhere on the Server be an information about who is downloading what at what speed and how much?
Thank you for your help in advance.
Not really possible cross-browser, but have a look into http://markmail.org/message/kmrpk7w3h56tidxs#query:jquery%20ajax%20download%20progress+page:1+mid:kmrpk7w3h56tidxs+state:results for a pretty close effort. IE (as usual) is the main culprit for not playing ball.
You can do it with two seperate php files, first file for downloading process.
Like as:
$strtTime=time();
$download_rate=120; //downloading rate
$fp = fopen($real, "r");
flush();// Flush headers
while (!feof($fp)) {
$downloaded=round($download_rate * 1024);
echo fread($fp,$downloaded );
ob_flush();
flush();
if (connection_aborted ()) {
// unlink("yourtempFile.txt" ;
exit;
}
$totalDw +=$downloaded;
// file_put_contents("yourtempFile.txt", "downloaded: $totalDw ; StartTime:$strtTime");
sleep(1);
}
fclose($fp);
// unlink("yourtempFile.txt") ;
Second file would be used for reading yourtempFile.txt by Ajax continusly. Using Sessions and Cookies wouldn't be used because of starting print.