File downloading from remote server

Anon

I am trying to find a way to allow users on my website (www.surgu.com) to download files stored on another webserver which I run. Basically the surgu server has the PHP processor and the other server has huge storage and network capacity.

I have tried to do it like this very basic:

<?PHP
$file = "http://www.storageserver.com/file.exe";
header("Content-type: application/octet-stream\n");
header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"$file\"\n");
header("Content-transfer-encoding: binary\n");
?>

I get a dialog saying "You are downloading a file from LocalHost. Open or Save" (I use localhost for testing). WHen I click open or save it tells me the file cannot be opened. I think it is looking on the local host for a file at http://localhost/http://www.storageserver.com/file.exe

Does anyone know the correct way to do this?

Thanks for any help.

Stuart

Anon

Also testing it online returns a file with zero size.

Stuart

Anon

I´m not so sure but i think you have to open your file with fopen(filename), before you can link it this way.

In my oppinion you should link your files with normal hyperlinks, so your browser will do the work (open/save) for you ...

Anon

Sorry, I just see headers - I don't see anywhere you actually output the file...

Anon

Yup - I see that now. I suppose I could have opened the file and passed it through the surgu server but that uses bandwidth and defeats the purpose. I am now looking at using the Location: header to redirect to the file location once I have authenticated the user and logged the download.

If I have a test script like

<?PHP
$file = "http://www.fileserver.com/file.exe";
header("Location: $file");
?>

the it works fine. But if I put in some user logging above that then I run into problems. The browser displays the file as text. I am guessing the cookie headers I send before the Location headers are interfering?

I dunno. I'll keep trying I guess.

Stuart