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Show HN: Station307 – Stream files between cURL, Wget and/or browser

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Re: Show HN: Station307 – Stream files between cURL, Wget and/or browser

#3

This is very useful! How do they think to earn money with it?

Thanks! I don't have any plans to monetize this to be honest. I built this because I had the need for this myself and, if people like it, it will be a nice exercise in maintaining something that works well under stress :).

Re: Show HN: Station307 – Stream files between cURL, Wget and/or browser

#5
post #4

Very nice. I've bookmarked it. By the way - there was another similar service recently, but stores files: https://transfer.sh/ , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11322007

Thank you! And thanks for linking to the thread as well; I did already come across it but it definitely contains some good discussion on general feasibility, DCMA issues and other similar projects. It was also nice to learn that transfer.sh is also made in Holland :).

Re: Show HN: Station307 – Stream files between cURL, Wget and/or browser

#7

How does this work? I see the pending POST in the Chrome network tab, which completes when someone downloads it, and then become pending again for the next download. So are you proxying the uploaded data to the downloading client?

That's exactly what's going on. In a bit more detail: when a POST arrives and no receiver is available yet the server lets the sender know that it won't handle any more data (TCP Zero Window). When the receiver connects to the server the server asks the sender to continue writing and the data is relayed (proxied) from sender to receiver. If multiple receivers connect they're put into a queue and the server waits for the sender to POST the data again once the ongoing transfer is finished.

An interesting difference is that in the browser the rePOSTing is done through scripting whereas when using cURL or Wget (or httpie, or ...) the server will issue a 307 Temporary Redirect allowing cURL/Wget to send the file again without manual intervention. Hence the name! (although that doesn't really account for the "Station" part yet)

Re: Show HN: Station307 – Stream files between cURL, Wget and/or browser

#8
Author here! This is a little side project I created because I found myself using scp + email to send a file from a server to someone sitting right next to me more than once. I have a different project which does relaying over HTTP so I figured it might be a good idea to reuse a part of the codebase for a simple file streaming service. I finished it yesterday and it already proved useful for myself, and I hope it also proves to be useful for you.

If there are any (more) questions on the what or how, I'm happy to answer them. The day here is however coming to an end so it might take me a couple of hours. While I'm gone, please be aware that the service is running on a $5/month VM ;).

Re: Show HN: Station307 – Stream files between cURL, Wget and/or browser

#9
post #8

Author here! This is a little side project I created because I found myself using scp + email to send a file from a server to someone sitting right next to me more than once. I have a different project which does relaying over HTTP so I figured it might be a good idea to reuse a part of the codebase for a simple file streaming service. I finished it yesterday and it already proved useful for myself, and I hope it als…

Hey really nice to hear from you. Would be really nice if you share source code with the community. I really like the HTTP status code 100 trick :D
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