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I'm not sure how common my request is but here goes:

I have a client who wants to be able to receive files of up to 2GB in size from their customers. The reason why the files are kind of big is because they are graphic design files. Ideally, they would have their customers transfer their files via FTP using an FTP client like Filezilla. However my client has stated that they spend way too much time trying to school people on how to enter FTP credentials into an FTP program and the concept of FTP in general.

So ultimately my client has stated that they would like the customer to be able to use a web interface, which they're already familiar with, to be able to accomplish the same task. For example, they'd like the customer to be able to use a form and hit an upload file button. Simple as that.

At this point I should state that I'm working on a WordPress site on top of a Rackspace Cloud Sites server (shared hosting).

I'm using a WordPress plugin that allows me to do this and it works for small files but not for files approaching 500MB. After speaking to a RS Cloud tech support person I've narrowed it down to the temporary directory /tmp/ in the Apache server. That is the server is not able to write large files into that temporary directory because of their server wide restrictions. That is, they cannot change this to accomodate my needs. They said I would need a dedicated server for that, which, is not an option for me.

After doing some thinking though, I've come to the conclusion that it's silly for me to have to upload a file to the server's temporary directory, only to move the file to the ftp server. So this brings me to my question: is it possible for a web based PHP script to send the file directly from the user's machine, bypass the web server, and send it directly to the FTP server?

If not, do you have any other suggestions? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

racl101
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  • you can make a script and allow users to run ftp from their pcs and automate the ftp process .Just a ideea , try to look at : http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/how-to-automate-ftp-uploads-from-the-windows-command-line/ – Maria Gheorghe Nov 30 '14 at 09:14

2 Answers2

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No, it's not possible at all.

My suggestion? Search and learn how to use HTML5 upload for large files.

lorenzo-s
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Its seams like someone find solution for your problem. Please refer to this question:

Stream FTP download to output

The question was how to stream/pipe file from FTP thru HTTP to the user's browser.

It seams like the answer from @strager is what you need.

Community
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Bartosz Firyn
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