Question

I would like to make a Rails app to create a pretty download page for any file requested either through a link or by typing the url of the file. Is there a way to intercept the request for a file in Apache or elsewhere and send it to the app so it can generate the page?

I’d also prefer not to change the url when redirecting to the app, but it doesn’t really matter either way.

So to wrap up, turn this: http://files.spherecat1.com/stuff.txt, into this:
http://files.spherecat1.com/download-page-mockup.png
(Image for illustrative purposes only and may not accurately depict final product. It’s fun to add disclaimers to everything.)

Answer 1

Do you mean an entire Rails app just for that? Seems like overkill – you can use Sinatra, a single route, and their send_file function with much greater ease. It also deploys on Apache with Passenger.

If you have control over this thing, and you only plan to offer downloads in this way and not in any other, you should probably store the files in some non-public directory and instead allow your Rails/Sinatra app to access and push the files to the user. (Again, with send_file, that’s easy.) Why put a file in your web root if your users will never access it that way?