PHP server to server file request - php

Question

I have script-1 on server A, where user ask for a file.
I have script-2 on server B (the file repository) where I check that user can access it and return the correct file (I'm using Smart File Download http://www.zubrag.com/scripts/download.php).
I've tried cURL and file_get_contents, I've changed Content Header in various ways, but I wasn't still able to download the file.
This is my request:
$request = "http://mysite.com/download.php?f=test.pdf";
and it works fine.
What should I call in script-1 to force the file be downloaded?
Some of my tries
This works, but I don't know how to handle unauthorized or broken downloads
header('Content-type: application/pdf');
$handle = fopen($request, "r");
if ($handle) {
while (!feof($handle)) {
$buffer = fgets($handle, 4096);
echo $buffer;
}
fclose($handle);
}
This prints the pdf code (not the text) straight in the browser (I think it's a header problem):
$c = curl_init();
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_URL, $request);
$contents = curl_exec($c);
curl_close($c);
if ($contents) return $contents;
else return FALSE;
This generate a white page
file_get_contents($request);

Answer 1

To force download, add
header('Content-disposition: attachment');
But Note, that it's not in HTTP 1.1 spec anymore, see Uses of content-disposition in an HTTP response header first answer

Answer 2

Without your code I don't know what you've tried, but you need to get the contents of the file via cURL and then save it to your server. Something like...
$url = 'http://website.com/file.pdf';
$path = '/tmp/file.pdf';
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$contents = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
file_put_contents($path, $contents);

Answer 3

If you want to downloads file from the FTP server you can use php File Transfer Protocol (FTP) extension. Please find below code:
<?php
$SERVER_ADDRESS="";
$SERVER_USERNAME="";
$SERVER_PASSWORD="";
$conn_id = ftp_connect($SERVER_ADDRESS);
// login with username and password
$login_result = ftp_login($conn_id, $SERVER_USERNAME, $SERVER_PASSWORD);
$server_file="test.pdf" //FTP server file path
$local_file = "new.pdf"; //Local server file path
##----- DOWNLOAD $SERVER_FILE AND SAVE IT TO $LOCAL_FILE--------##
if (ftp_get($conn_id, $local_file, $server_file, FTP_BINARY)) {
echo "Successfully written to $local_file\n";
} else {
echo "There was a problem\n";
}
ftp_close($conn_id);
?>

Answer 4

Download the file with curl, then check this: http://php.net/function.readfile
It shows how to force download.

Answer 5

SOLVED
I ended by simply redirect the request with:
header("Location: $request");