How to upload a file using Java HttpClient library working with PHP - strange problem

Question

I want to write Java application that will upload a file to the Apache server with PHP. The Java code uses Jakarta HttpClient library version 4.0 beta2:

import java.io.File;
import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.HttpVersion;
import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.entity.FileEntity;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.params.CoreProtocolPNames;
import org.apache.http.util.EntityUtils;


public class PostFile {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
    httpclient.getParams().setParameter(CoreProtocolPNames.PROTOCOL_VERSION, HttpVersion.HTTP_1_1);

    HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("http://localhost:9002/upload.php");
    File file = new File("c:/TRASH/zaba_1.jpg");

    FileEntity reqEntity = new FileEntity(file, "binary/octet-stream");

    httppost.setEntity(reqEntity);
    reqEntity.setContentType("binary/octet-stream");
    System.out.println("executing request " + httppost.getRequestLine());
    HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
    HttpEntity resEntity = response.getEntity();

    System.out.println(response.getStatusLine());
    if (resEntity != null) {
      System.out.println(EntityUtils.toString(resEntity));
    }
    if (resEntity != null) {
      resEntity.consumeContent();
    }

    httpclient.getConnectionManager().shutdown();
  }
}

the PHP file upload.php is very simple:

<?php
if (is_uploaded_file($_FILES['userfile']['tmp_name'])) {
  echo "File ". $_FILES['userfile']['name'] ." uploaded successfully.\n";
  move_uploaded_file ($_FILES['userfile'] ['tmp_name'], $_FILES['userfile'] ['name']);
} else {
  echo "Possible file upload attack: ";
  echo "filename '". $_FILES['userfile']['tmp_name'] . "'.";
  print_r($_FILES);
}
?>

Reading the response I get the following result: executing request POST http://localhost:9002/upload.php HTTP/1.1

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Possible file upload attack: filename ''.
Array
(
)

So the request was succesfull, I was able to communicate with server, however PHP didn't notice the file - the method is_uploaded_file returned false and $_FILES variable is empty. I have no idea why this might happend. I have tracked HTTP response and request and they look ok: request is

POST /upload.php HTTP/1.1
Content-Length: 13091
Content-Type: binary/octet-stream
Host: localhost:9002
Connection: Keep-Alive
User-Agent: Apache-HttpClient/4.0-beta2 (java 1.5)
Expect: 100-Continue

˙Ř˙ŕ..... the rest of the binary file...

and response:

HTTP/1.1 100 Continue

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:51:57 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.8 (Win32) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.8 OpenSSL/0.9.8g mod_autoindex_color PHP/5.2.5 mod_jk/1.2.26
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.5
Content-Length: 51
Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: text/html

Possible file upload attack: filename ''.Array
(
)

I was testing this both on the local windows xp with xampp and remote Linux server. I have also tried to use previous version of HttpClient - version 3.1 - and the result was even more unclear, is_uploaded_file returned false, however $_FILES array was filled with proper data.

Answer 1

If you are testing this on your local WAMP you might need to set up the temporary folder for file uploads. You can do this in your PHP.ini file:

upload_tmp_dir = "c:\mypath\mytempfolder\"

You will need to grant permissions on the folder to allow the upload to take place - the permission you need to grant vary based on your operating system.

Answer 2

The correct way will be to use multipart POST method. See here for example code for the client.

For PHP there are many tutorials available. This is the first I've found. I recommend that you test the PHP code first using an html client and then try the java client.

Answer 3

Ok, the Java code I used was wrong, here comes the right Java class:

import java.io.File;
import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.HttpVersion;
import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.entity.mime.MultipartEntity;
import org.apache.http.entity.mime.content.ContentBody;
import org.apache.http.entity.mime.content.FileBody;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.params.CoreProtocolPNames;
import org.apache.http.util.EntityUtils;


public class PostFile {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
    httpclient.getParams().setParameter(CoreProtocolPNames.PROTOCOL_VERSION, HttpVersion.HTTP_1_1);

    HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("http://localhost:9001/upload.php");
    File file = new File("c:/TRASH/zaba_1.jpg");

    MultipartEntity mpEntity = new MultipartEntity();
    ContentBody cbFile = new FileBody(file, "image/jpeg");
    mpEntity.addPart("userfile", cbFile);


    httppost.setEntity(mpEntity);
    System.out.println("executing request " + httppost.getRequestLine());
    HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
    HttpEntity resEntity = response.getEntity();

    System.out.println(response.getStatusLine());
    if (resEntity != null) {
      System.out.println(EntityUtils.toString(resEntity));
    }
    if (resEntity != null) {
      resEntity.consumeContent();
    }

    httpclient.getConnectionManager().shutdown();
  }
}

note using MultipartEntity.

Answer 4

hi, i had a question on this. How to mention the file path in the destination server. IS there any way to mention this in MultiPartEntity object.

Answer 5

Try JFileUpload. It does this job. It uploads files over HTTP or HTTPS to any web server with JSP or PHP installed to parse multipart data. See http://www.jfileupload.com