Meteor: Trying to serve a static file outside of /public

Question

TLDR; How can one serve a static file through iron router? If I place a file in /public it bypasses all the hooks I could use in iron router.

Long version: I need

Answer 1

You can use fs to server any file:

Router.route('/static/:filename', function (){
  var fs = Npm.require('fs'),
      path = '/tmp/' + this.params.filename; // make sure to validate input here

  // read the file
  var chunk = fs.createReadStream(path);

  // prepare HTTP headers
  var headers = {}, // add Content-type, Content-Lenght etc. if you need
      statusCode = 200; // everything is OK, also could be 404, 500 etc.

  // out content of the file to the output stream
  this.response.writeHead(statusCode, headers);
  chunk.pipe(this.response);
});

Answer 2

Of course it is possible. You have full access to the request and response objects of the HTTP request, and you can even wire up arbitrary connect middleware.

Here is my solution using the latter, serving from the /tmp directory:

var serveStatic = Meteor.npmRequire('serve-static');

if (Meteor.isClient) {
}

if (Meteor.isServer) {
    var serve = serveStatic('/tmp');
    // NOTE: this has to be an absolute path, since the relative
    // project directories change upon bundling/production

    Router.onBeforeAction(serve, {where: 'server'});

    Router.route('/:file', function () {
        this.next();
    }, {where: 'server'});
}

To make this work you'll also need the npm package:

meteor add meteorhacks:npm

And you'll need to add serve-static to your packages.json file:

{
    "serve-static": "1.10.0"
}

Afterwards, any file /tmp/x.xyz will be available on your /x.xyz URL.