Question

Can I use send_file to send a file on a drive other than the Rails.root drive? I’ve tried both options below. I need to use the second option but Rails doesn’t like using a drive other than the volume on which it is on.

This works:

def action
  send_file "C:\\rails_root\\public\\files\\file.ext"
end

This doesn’t:

def action
  send_file "D:\\files\\file.ext"
end

Is send_file restricted to just the Rails.root drive? Is it possible to serve static files from a directory on a network mapped drive? Oh, and this is (un)fortunately an all windows environment.

UPDATE: So I’ve been digging around in the Rails/Ruby code that send_file uses and I think the primary culprit here is File.file?(path). It returns true when on the drive which Rails lives but false for networked drives.

UPDATE 2: Really strange. In the console both locations inserted for File.file?(path) return true. In the application running in the browser it returns false. I’m stumped.

Answer 1

It turns out that the service running Apache didn’t have permissions to access the network share.

In the controller I ended up using the direct network share address instead of using the mapped drive. I’m still not sure why the mapped drive didn’t work.

def download
   send_file "\\\\server\\folder\file.ext"
end

In the Apache configuration file (domain.conf) you have to use forward slashes when setting the parameters for XSendFile.

XSendFile on
XSendFilePath //server/folder/

If anyone else has issues I’ll be glad to try and help.