Using send_file to download a file from Amazon S3?

Question

I have a download link in my app from which users should be able to download files which are stored on s3. These files will be publicly accessible on urls which look somethi

Answer 1

Keep Things Simple For The User

I think the best way to handle this is using an expiring S3 url. The other methods have the following issues:

• The file downloads to the server first and then to the user.
• Using send_data doesn't produce the expected "browser download".
• Ties up the Ruby process.
• Requires an additional download controller action.

My implementation looks like this:

In your attachment.rb

def download_url
  S3 = AWS::S3.new.buckets[ 'bucket_name' ] # This can be done elsewhere as well,
                                            # e.g config/environments/development.rb
  url_options = { 
    expires_in:                   60.minutes, 
    use_ssl:                      true, 
    response_content_disposition: "attachment; filename=\"#{attachment_file_name}\""
  }

  S3.objects[ self.path ].url_for( :read, url_options ).to_s
end

In your views

<%= link_to 'Download Avicii by Avicii', attachment.download_url %>

That's it.

---

If you still wanted to keep your download action for some reason then just use this:

In your attachments_controller.rb

def download
  redirect_to @attachment.download_url
end

Thanks to guilleva for his guidance.