[ckan-dev] Question: Proxying files in CKAN

Fri Sep 21 11:20:41 UTC 2012

I wrote a quick implementation of a proxy which only works for resources. We could even limit it to pdf files.

https://github.com/okfn/ckan/commit/c67ad47ba22b

On Sep 21, 2012, at 11:55 , Toby Dacre <toby.okfn at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 21 September 2012 11:45, Dominik Moritz <domoritz at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hello all,
>> 
>> Toby and me added a pdf preview for ckan based on pdf.js. Unfortunately,
>> because of cross domain issues it is not possible to preview files from a
>> different domain. We could add a simple proxy that serves the files. Our
>> question is what implications that could have for ckan.
>> 
>> The ide is to have a proxy only for resources. So a request to:
>> /fileproxy/{resource-id} would server the file. It should not be a general
>> proxy because of security issues.
>> 
>> Are there serious issues with this approach?
>> 
>> 
> To widen the discussion a little
> 
> the options appear to be
> 
> 1) drop the viewer
> 2) only view local files (seems odd to the user that we can see some not
> others)
> 3) have a proxy to reserve the pdf from same domain to avoid the problem
> 4) try to `cache` a local copy of the pdf (are there license issues)
> 
> if we decide on 3
> 
> we then get the issues
> 
> a) as part of ckan is this turned on by default or a plugin so availability
> is an instance level choice (we could check the resource `exists` in ckan
> b) is it externally done via apache/nginx (is this then just an open proxy
> to be abused)
> c) what dangers are there in it for us/clients as the runners of such a
> proxy
> 
> personally I'd prefer to look at the 4 option but what do others think?
> 
> Toby
> 
> Cheers,
>> Dominik
>> 
>> 