[LRUG] Rails: using send_file to send video to the browser

[Tom Armitage]

I'm working on a project that displays HTML5 video in the browser, and
access to those videos is controlled.

Previously, I was using an expiring S3 URL; now I'm hosting the video
myself, attached via Paperclip. The uploads directory is outside the
/public directory of the Rails app; there's a URL for the video that, when
a user hits it, checks if they're authorised to view it, and if so, uses
send_file to send it to them.

This no longer works very well now that I'm using send_file - I *think* this
comes down to the fact the browser requests video with Range headers,
getting it in chunks, and my poor back-end clearly isn't doing something
sophisticiated enough.

My initial thoughts were:

* something like [
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6759426/rails-media-file-stream-accept-byte-range-request-through-send-data-or-send-file],
which odes the chunking manually but is beginning to make me feel stupid,
and also feels fragile
* is Puma the issue, and would a better web server for development work?

I'm asking because whilst I think I've found the right track, some of you
might have had experience of this before.

t.

-- 
Tom Armitage
http://infovore.org
07813 060578
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