I am trying to get my Apache2 web application to push an arbitrary file extension as an octet-stream when pointed to by a browser.
i.e. Someone goes to blahblah/exam
I wont recommend to use .htaccess with Rails apps. You have to configure certain things for apache and passenger. Better use the config file in /etc/httpd/conf.d (or wherever you have configured your app on your server). If you put the AddType line as follows (in my case, I had the problem with downloadable Python Scripts):
AddType application/x-python-script .py
in the VirtualHosts section of your webapp config file, then you'll should be fine. If you really want to use .htaccess, do a
chmod 600 .htaccess
in your public folder, which causes apache not to ignore the file for savety reasons (but again, you'll need to configure lots of other stuff then).
I believe you have to add a .
before the extension:
AddType application/octet-stream .xyz