[RESOLVED] Downloading huge files

ecce

Hi, first post comes here.... 🙂

This will probably be an easy one for you:
I have a site where members are allowed to download large iso-images via HTTP (yes, perfectly leagal). To protect anyone from getting the files by entering a direct URL I've put them outside the www root, and then I made a very simple script based around this piece of code:

header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.substr($file, strrpos($file, "/")+1).'');
header('Content-type: message/rfc822');
readfile($file);

However, downloading files that are about 600 MB takes a while (speed is about 5 MB/sec), and the script times out after 30 seconds as usual. That gives the user about 125 MB.

I don't whant to change the timeout settings, there must be a better way of kicking of the download, in a way that is does not depend on a running script.

dewen

try put

set_time_limit (0);

on top of the script

Hope it's what you need

halojoy

However, downloading files that are about 600 MB takes a while (speed is about 5 MB/sec),
and the script times out after 30 seconds as usual.
That gives the user about 125 MB.

I don't whant to change the timeout settings, there must be a better way of kicking of the download, in a way that is does not depend on a running script.

If your script is a PHP, I am afraid you will have to,
at least, make temporary increase of php timeout setting.

This will get back to php.ini value after script is ended.
You put this line in your script, somewhere before the transfer

ini_set( 'max_execution_time', '300' );

As this download (600M😎 might take something like 150-180, on a good day
I think 300 seconds will work in most cases.

More reading and info:
http://uk.php.net/manual/en/ref.info.php#ini.max-execution-time

max_execution_time integer

This sets the maximum time in seconds a script is allowed to run before it is terminated by the parser. This helps prevent poorly written scripts from tying up the server. The default setting is 30.

The maximum execution time is not affected by system calls, stream operations etc. Please see the set_time_limit() function for more details.

You can not change this setting with ini_set() when running in safe mode. The only workaround is to turn off safe mode or by changing the time limit in the php.ini.

Your webserver can have other timeouts. E.g. Apache has Timeout directive, IIS has CGI timeout function, both default to 300 seconds. See the webserver documentation for meaning of it.

max_input_time integer

This sets the maximum time in seconds a script is allowed to parse input data, like POST, GET and file uploads. [/QUOTE]

ecce

Yepp, worked great! Thanks.