On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 10:07:00PM -0400, Vincent Veselosky wrote:
>
> I wouldn't say it is "wrong" necessarily, only that it is often not the best
> solution. Some disadvantages:
>
> * performance: Apache will serve binary content from the file system with
> better response times
> * memory: serving with a mod_perl process could use 10-100MB more RAM than
> Apache optimized for static files (and since binaries are often larger than
> text files, the process will be held longer)
> * pain: one slip in the code can cause your binary to be corrupted, and this
> can be hard to debug.
>
> I find it is often more efficient to pre-generate binaries using an offline
> script. That said, I have used Mason to serve binaries, specifically CAPTCHA
> images which need to be both randomly generated and associated with a
> particular form submission for checking. It's not always wrong! :)
>
> Some rules to follow in components that serve binary data:
>
> * Always use the inherit => undef flag. Any text sent from any component in
> the chain will corrupt your binary, and this is the only way to ensure that
> never happens.
Doesn't
$m->clear_buffer();
take care of that?
> * Always explicitly set the content-type header in the component (before you
> flush any buffers!).
I set the content-type after clear_buffer() and it works fine. It seems
more logical to me, no?
> * Name the component with an extension appropriate to the content-type. If
> it generates pdf files, name it something.pdf, and modify your apache
> configuration specially for that file. (This one may be considered
> controversial, but I find it saves lots of pain at the client side, and I
> strongly recommend it.)
... or have a $r->path_info with the correct extension. That way you can
keep your component naming scheme (.md, .mhtml, etc.) and have the
client think it's downloading a real file.
/video.md/dummy/path/to/file.mp4
> Does anyone else have some handy tips? I would like to hear how others are
> doing this too.
My tip would be to disable mod_deflate when serving video to a flash
player such as FlowPlayer.
Even if your mod_deflate is configured to compress only text/html
output, it won't notice the content-type change done inside your
component and will only rely on the component's extension to deduce its
content-type.
So unless your mason component has an .mp4 extension you can do:
$r->subprocess_env('no-gzip' => 1);
$r->subprocess_env('dont-vary' => 1);
and FlowPlayer will be happy.
Cheers,
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