400 Bad Request - Trying to stream webcam using readfile() on external URL - php

Question

I'm trying to stream an ipcamera through PHP using the following code;
<?
# Stop apache timing out
set_time_limit(0);
# Set the correct header
header('Content-Type: multipart/x-mixed-replace;boundary=ipcamera');
# Read the images
readfile('http://[USER]:[PASSWORD]#[IPADDRESS]:[PORT]/videostream.cgi');
?>
This script works just fine on my localhost running apache and php, however on my web server (tested on 2 servers), I receive a 400 Bad Request error. I was previously receiving a 'connection refused' error, but this was resolved by my host forwarding the correct port.
Is 400 not something like incorrect syntax? Could this be because i have the "[USER]:[PASSWORD]#" in the url? If so, is there another way I can authenticate before running readfile?
I have run the following cases to determine the response code;
readfile('http://[USER]:[PASSWORD]#[IPADDRESS]:[PORT]/NONEXISTINGFILE.cgi');
// Returns 400 Bad Request (Should be 404)
readfile('http://[IPADDRESS]:[PORT]/NONEXISTINGFILE.cgi');
// Returns 404 Not Found (Correct Response)
readfile('http://[IPADDRESS]:[PORT]/videostream.cgi');
// Returns 401 Unauthorized (Correct Response)
readfile('http://[USER]:[PASSWORD]#[IPADDRESS]:[PORT]/videostream.cgi');
// Returns 400 Bad Request (Incorrect - Should be .. 200(?) OK)
readfile('http://[USER]:[PASSWORD]#[IPADDRESS]:[PORT]/FILETHATDOESEXIST.jpg');
// Returns 400 Bad Request (Should be 200(?) OK)
readfile('http://[IPADDRESS]:[PORT]/FILETHATDOESEXIST.jpg');
// Returns 200(?) OK (Correct Response)
If someone is able to give me the curl equivalent of this script, perhaps this is the solution. The Bounty still stands to anyone who can solve this for me :)
Regards,

Answer 1

For curl, try something like:
<?php
# Stop apache timing out
set_time_limit(0);
# Set the correct header
header('Content-Type: multipart/x-mixed-replace;boundary=ipcamera');
# Read the images
$ch = curl_init('http://[IPADDRESS]:[PORT]/videostream.cgi');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, '[USER]:[PASSWORD]');
curl_exec($ch);
If you want to continue to use readfile(), you could use stream_context_create() to construct a stream context for readfile. See this documentation on php.net to see how that could be done - specifically, you will want to create an HTTP stream context that passes an Authentication header.

Answer 2

simply check your [USER] and [PASSWORD] ... make sure it does not contains :, /, # ...
if there is escape it with \

Answer 3

You might have something set in your PHP.INI on the production server that is disabling readfile's ability to load external URLs.
I'm specifically thinking about allow_url_fopen which may be set to FALSE, though it may be something else.
You can also check you web server's error log for clues. PHP will usually emit a specific warning.