how to limit file download size?

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi, I'm writing a ruby on rails application that allows the user to submit a link of a file which my app will then download. Right now my app blindly downloads the file (which is 1-2mb on average) I'm worried about pranksters who would intentionally submit links to 30gb files. Is there a way to set the maximum size of a file that I'm downloading?

One possible solution is to parse the content-length field of the file header. But the server need not send this field along with the file.

I just want my application to stop downloading when the file gets to a certain size (say 2mb) and alert the user that the file they submitted is too big.

Thanks!

--Andrei

2

This is a job of the web server. For apache look up the LimitRequestBody configuration directive - it will allow you to specify the maximum allowed Content-Length for requests to your server.