Resumable downloads when using PHP to send the fil

Question

We are using a PHP scripting for tunnelling file downloads, since we don't want to expose the absolute path of downloadable file:

header("Content-Type: $ctype");
header("Content-Length: " . filesize($file));
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$fileName\"");
readfile($file);

Unfortunately we noticed that downloads passed through this script can't be resumed by the end user.

Is there any way to support resumable downloads with such a PHP-based solution?

Answer 1

Thanks Theo! your method did not directly work for streaming divx because i found the divx player was sending ranges like bytes=9932800-

but it showed me how to do it so thanks :D

if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE']))
{
    file_put_contents('showrange.txt',$_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE']);

Answer 2

The first thing you need to do is to send the Accept-Ranges: bytes header in all responses, to tell the client that you support partial content. Then, if request with a Range: bytes=x-y header is received (with x and y being numbers) you parse the range the client is requesting, open the file as usual, seek x bytes ahead and send the next y - x bytes. Also set the response to HTTP/1.0 206 Partial Content.

Without having tested anything, this could work, more or less:

$filesize = filesize($file);

$offset = 0;
$length = $filesize;

if ( isset($_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE']) ) {
    // if the HTTP_RANGE header is set we're dealing with partial content

    $partialContent = true;

    // find the requested range
    // this might be too simplistic, apparently the client can request
    // multiple ranges, which can become pretty complex, so ignore it for now
    preg_match('/bytes=(\d+)-(\d+)?/', $_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'], $matches);

    $offset = intval($matches[1]);
    $length = intval($matches[2]) - $offset;
} else {
    $partialContent = false;
}

$file = fopen($file, 'r');

// seek to the requested offset, this is 0 if it's not a partial content request
fseek($file, $offset);

$data = fread($file, $length);

fclose($file);

if ( $partialContent ) {
    // output the right headers for partial content

    header('HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content');

    header('Content-Range: bytes ' . $offset . '-' . ($offset + $length) . '/' . $filesize);
}

// output the regular HTTP headers
header('Content-Type: ' . $ctype);
header('Content-Length: ' . $filesize);
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $fileName . '"');
header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');

// don't forget to send the data too
print($data);

I may have missed something obvious, and I have most definitely ignored some potential sources of errors, but it should be a start.

There's a description of partial content here and I found some info on partial content on the documentation page for fread.

Answer 3

This works 100% super check it I am using it and no problems any more.

        /* Function: download with resume/speed/stream options */


         /* List of File Types */
        function fileTypes($extension){
            $fileTypes['swf'] = 'application/x-shockwave-flash';
            $fileTypes['pdf'] = 'application/pdf';
            $fileTypes['exe'] = 'application/octet-stream';
            $fileTypes['zip'] = 'application/zip';
            $fileTypes['doc'] = 'application/msword';
            $fileTypes['xls'] = 'application/vnd.ms-excel';
            $fileTypes['ppt'] = 'application/vnd.ms-powerpoint';
            $fileTypes['gif'] = 'image/gif';
            $fileTypes['png'] = 'image/png';
            $fileTypes['jpeg'] = 'image/jpg';
            $fileTypes['jpg'] = 'image/jpg';
            $fileTypes['rar'] = 'application/rar';

            $fileTypes['ra'] = 'audio/x-pn-realaudio';
            $fileTypes['ram'] = 'audio/x-pn-realaudio';
            $fileTypes['ogg'] = 'audio/x-pn-realaudio';

            $fileTypes['wav'] = 'video/x-msvideo';
            $fileTypes['wmv'] = 'video/x-msvideo';
            $fileTypes['avi'] = 'video/x-msvideo';
            $fileTypes['asf'] = 'video/x-msvideo';
            $fileTypes['divx'] = 'video/x-msvideo';

            $fileTypes['mp3'] = 'audio/mpeg';
            $fileTypes['mp4'] = 'audio/mpeg';
            $fileTypes['mpeg'] = 'video/mpeg';
            $fileTypes['mpg'] = 'video/mpeg';
            $fileTypes['mpe'] = 'video/mpeg';
            $fileTypes['mov'] = 'video/quicktime';
            $fileTypes['swf'] = 'video/quicktime';
            $fileTypes['3gp'] = 'video/quicktime';
            $fileTypes['m4a'] = 'video/quicktime';
            $fileTypes['aac'] = 'video/quicktime';
            $fileTypes['m3u'] = 'video/quicktime';
            return $fileTypes[$extention];
        };

        /*
          Parameters: downloadFile(File Location, File Name,
          max speed, is streaming
          If streaming - videos will show as videos, images as images
          instead of download prompt
         */

        function downloadFile($fileLocation, $fileName, $maxSpeed = 100, $doStream = false) {
            if (connection_status() != 0)
                return(false);
        //    in some old versions this can be pereferable to get extention
        //    $extension = strtolower(end(explode('.', $fileName)));
            $extension = pathinfo($fileName, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);

            $contentType = fileTypes($extension);
            header("Cache-Control: public");
            header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary\n");
            header('Content-Type: $contentType');

            $contentDisposition = 'attachment';

            if ($doStream == true) {
                /* extensions to stream */
                $array_listen = array('mp3', 'm3u', 'm4a', 'mid', 'ogg', 'ra', 'ram', 'wm',
                    'wav', 'wma', 'aac', '3gp', 'avi', 'mov', 'mp4', 'mpeg', 'mpg', 'swf', 'wmv', 'divx', 'asf');
                if (in_array($extension, $array_listen)) {
                    $contentDisposition = 'inline';
                }
            }

            if (strstr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], "MSIE")) {
                $fileName = preg_replace('/\./', '%2e', $fileName, substr_count($fileName, '.') - 1);
                header("Content-Disposition: $contentDisposition;
                    filename=\"$fileName\"");
            } else {
                header("Content-Disposition: $contentDisposition;
                    filename=\"$fileName\"");
            }

            header("Accept-Ranges: bytes");
            $range = 0;
            $size = filesize($fileLocation);

            if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'])) {
                list($a, $range) = explode("=", $_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE']);
                str_replace($range, "-", $range);
                $size2 = $size - 1;
                $new_length = $size - $range;
                header("HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content");
                header("Content-Length: $new_length");
                header("Content-Range: bytes $range$size2/$size");
            } else {
                $size2 = $size - 1;
                header("Content-Range: bytes 0-$size2/$size");
                header("Content-Length: " . $size);
            }

            if ($size == 0) {
                die('Zero byte file! Aborting download');
            }
            set_magic_quotes_runtime(0);
            $fp = fopen("$fileLocation", "rb");

            fseek($fp, $range);

            while (!feof($fp) and ( connection_status() == 0)) {
                set_time_limit(0);
                print(fread($fp, 1024 * $maxSpeed));
                flush();
                ob_flush();
                sleep(1);
            }
            fclose($fp);

            return((connection_status() == 0) and ! connection_aborted());
        }

        /* Implementation */
        // downloadFile('path_to_file/1.mp3', '1.mp3', 1024, false);

Answer 4

Yes, you can use the Range header for that. You need to give 3 more headers to the client for a full download:

header ("Accept-Ranges: bytes");
header ("Content-Length: " . $fileSize);
header ("Content-Range: bytes 0-" . $fileSize - 1 . "/" . $fileSize . ";");

Than for an interrupted download you need to check the Range request header by:

$headers = getAllHeaders ();
$range = substr ($headers['Range'], '6');

And in this case don't forget to serve the content with 206 status code:

header ("HTTP/1.1 206 Partial content");
header ("Accept-Ranges: bytes");
header ("Content-Length: " . $remaining_length);
header ("Content-Range: bytes " . $start . "-" . $to . "/" . $fileSize . ";");

You'll get the $start and $to variables from the request header, and use fseek() to seek to the correct position in the file.

Answer 5

EDIT 2017/01 - I wrote a library to do this in PHP >=7.0 https://github.com/DaveRandom/Resume

EDIT 2016/02 - Code completely rewritten to a set of modular tools an an example usage, rather than a monolithic function. Corrections mentioned in comments below have been incorporated.

---

A tested, working solution (based heavily on Theo's answer above) which deals with resumable downloads, in a set of a few standalone tools. This code requires PHP 5.4 or later.

This solution can still only cope with one range per request, but under any circumstance with a standard browser that I can think of, this should not cause a problem.

<?php

/**
 * Get the value of a header in the current request context
 *
 * @param string $name Name of the header
 * @return string|null Returns null when the header was not sent or cannot be retrieved
 */
function get_request_header($name)
{
    $name = strtoupper($name);

    // IIS/Some Apache versions and configurations
    if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_' . $name])) {
        return trim($_SERVER['HTTP_' . $name]);
    }

    // Various other SAPIs
    foreach (apache_request_headers() as $header_name => $value) {
        if (strtoupper($header_name) === $name) {
            return trim($value);
        }
    }

    return null;
}

class NonExistentFileException extends \RuntimeException {}
class UnreadableFileException extends \RuntimeException {}
class UnsatisfiableRangeException extends \RuntimeException {}
class InvalidRangeHeaderException extends \RuntimeException {}

class RangeHeader
{
    /**
     * The first byte in the file to send (0-indexed), a null value indicates the last
     * $end bytes
     *
     * @var int|null
     */
    private $firstByte;

    /**
     * The last byte in the file to send (0-indexed), a null value indicates $start to
     * EOF
     *
     * @var int|null
     */
    private $lastByte;

    /**
     * Create a new instance from a Range header string
     *
     * @param string $header
     * @return RangeHeader
     */
    public static function createFromHeaderString($header)
    {
        if ($header === null) {
            return null;
        }

        if (!preg_match('/^\s*(\S+)\s*(\d*)\s*-\s*(\d*)\s*(?:,|$)/', $header, $info)) {
            throw new InvalidRangeHeaderException('Invalid header format');
        } else if (strtolower($info[1]) !== 'bytes') {
            throw new InvalidRangeHeaderException('Unknown range unit: ' . $info[1]);
        }

        return new self(
            $info[2] === '' ? null : $info[2],
            $info[3] === '' ? null : $info[3]
        );
    }

    /**
     * @param int|null $firstByte
     * @param int|null $lastByte
     * @throws InvalidRangeHeaderException
     */
    public function __construct($firstByte, $lastByte)
    {
        $this->firstByte = $firstByte === null ? $firstByte : (int)$firstByte;
        $this->lastByte = $lastByte === null ? $lastByte : (int)$lastByte;

        if ($this->firstByte === null && $this->lastByte === null) {
            throw new InvalidRangeHeaderException(
                'Both start and end position specifiers empty'
            );
        } else if ($this->firstByte < 0 || $this->lastByte < 0) {
            throw new InvalidRangeHeaderException(
                'Position specifiers cannot be negative'
            );
        } else if ($this->lastByte !== null && $this->lastByte < $this->firstByte) {
            throw new InvalidRangeHeaderException(
                'Last byte cannot be less than first byte'
            );
        }
    }

    /**
     * Get the start position when this range is applied to a file of the specified size
     *
     * @param int $fileSize
     * @return int
     * @throws UnsatisfiableRangeException
     */
    public function getStartPosition($fileSize)
    {
        $size = (int)$fileSize;

        if ($this->firstByte === null) {
            return ($size - 1) - $this->lastByte;
        }

        if ($size <= $this->firstByte) {
            throw new UnsatisfiableRangeException(
                'Start position is after the end of the file'
            );
        }

        return $this->firstByte;
    }

    /**
     * Get the end position when this range is applied to a file of the specified size
     *
     * @param int $fileSize
     * @return int
     * @throws UnsatisfiableRangeException
     */
    public function getEndPosition($fileSize)
    {
        $size = (int)$fileSize;

        if ($this->lastByte === null) {
            return $size - 1;
        }

        if ($size <= $this->lastByte) {
            throw new UnsatisfiableRangeException(
                'End position is after the end of the file'
            );
        }

        return $this->lastByte;
    }

    /**
     * Get the length when this range is applied to a file of the specified size
     *
     * @param int $fileSize
     * @return int
     * @throws UnsatisfiableRangeException
     */
    public function getLength($fileSize)
    {
        $size = (int)$fileSize;

        return $this->getEndPosition($size) - $this->getStartPosition($size) + 1;
    }

    /**
     * Get a Content-Range header corresponding to this Range and the specified file
     * size
     *
     * @param int $fileSize
     * @return string
     */
    public function getContentRangeHeader($fileSize)
    {
        return 'bytes ' . $this->getStartPosition($fileSize) . '-'
             . $this->getEndPosition($fileSize) . '/' . $fileSize;
    }
}

class PartialFileServlet
{
    /**
     * The range header on which the data transmission will be based
     *
     * @var RangeHeader|null
     */
    private $range;

    /**
     * @param RangeHeader $range Range header on which the transmission will be based
     */
    public function __construct(RangeHeader $range = null)
    {
        $this->range = $range;
    }

    /**
     * Send part of the data in a seekable stream resource to the output buffer
     *
     * @param resource $fp Stream resource to read data from
     * @param int $start Position in the stream to start reading
     * @param int $length Number of bytes to read
     * @param int $chunkSize Maximum bytes to read from the file in a single operation
     */
    private function sendDataRange($fp, $start, $length, $chunkSize = 8192)
    {
        if ($start > 0) {
            fseek($fp, $start, SEEK_SET);
        }

        while ($length) {
            $read = ($length > $chunkSize) ? $chunkSize : $length;
            $length -= $read;
            echo fread($fp, $read);
        }
    }

    /**
     * Send the headers that are included regardless of whether a range was requested
     *
     * @param string $fileName
     * @param int $contentLength
     * @param string $contentType
     */
    private function sendDownloadHeaders($fileName, $contentLength, $contentType)
    {
        header('Content-Type: ' . $contentType);
        header('Content-Length: ' . $contentLength);
        header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $fileName . '"');
        header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');
    }

    /**
     * Send data from a file based on the current Range header
     *
     * @param string $path Local file system path to serve
     * @param string $contentType MIME type of the data stream
     */
    public function sendFile($path, $contentType = 'application/octet-stream')
    {
        // Make sure the file exists and is a file, otherwise we are wasting our time
        $localPath = realpath($path);
        if ($localPath === false || !is_file($localPath)) {
            throw new NonExistentFileException(
                $path . ' does not exist or is not a file'
            );
        }

        // Make sure we can open the file for reading
        if (!$fp = fopen($localPath, 'r')) {
            throw new UnreadableFileException(
                'Failed to open ' . $localPath . ' for reading'
            );
        }

        $fileSize = filesize($localPath);

        if ($this->range == null) {
            // No range requested, just send the whole file
            header('HTTP/1.1 200 OK');
            $this->sendDownloadHeaders(basename($localPath), $fileSize, $contentType);

            fpassthru($fp);
        } else {
            // Send the request range
            header('HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content');
            header('Content-Range: ' . $this->range->getContentRangeHeader($fileSize));
            $this->sendDownloadHeaders(
                basename($localPath),
                $this->range->getLength($fileSize),
                $contentType
            );

            $this->sendDataRange(
                $fp,
                $this->range->getStartPosition($fileSize),
                $this->range->getLength($fileSize)
            );
        }

        fclose($fp);
    }
}

Example usage:

<?php

$path = '/local/path/to/file.ext';
$contentType = 'application/octet-stream';

// Avoid sending unexpected errors to the client - we should be serving a file,
// we don't want to corrupt the data we send
ini_set('display_errors', '0');

try {
    $rangeHeader = RangeHeader::createFromHeaderString(get_request_header('Range'));
    (new PartialFileServlet($rangeHeader))->sendFile($path, $contentType);
} catch (InvalidRangeHeaderException $e) {
    header("HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request");
} catch (UnsatisfiableRangeException $e) {
    header("HTTP/1.1 416 Range Not Satisfiable");
} catch (NonExistentFileException $e) {
    header("HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found");
} catch (UnreadableFileException $e) {
    header("HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error");
}

// It's usually a good idea to explicitly exit after sending a file to avoid sending any
// extra data on the end that might corrupt the file
exit;

Answer 6

Resuming downloads in HTTP is done through the Range header. If the request contains a Range header, and if other indicators (e.g. If-Match, If-Unmodified-Since) indicate that the content hasn't changed since the download was started, you give a 206 response code (rather than 200), indicate the range of bytes you're returning in the Content-Range header, then provide that range in the response body.

I don't know how to do that in PHP, though.