mod_rewrite to download - makes suspicous looking file - .htaccess

Question

I decided to try and use mod_rewrite to hide the location of a file that a user can download.
So they click on a link that's directed to "/download/some_file/" and they instead get "/downloads/some_file.zip"
Implemented like this:
RewriteRule ^download/([^/\.]+)/?$ downloads/$1.zip [L]
This works except they when the download progress appears I'm getting a file "download" with no extension which looks suspicious and the user might not be aware they are supposed to unzip it. Is there a way of doing this so it looks like an actual file? Or is there a better a way I should be doing this?
To provide some context/reason for hiding the location of the file. This is for a band where the music can be downloaded for free provided the user signs up for the mailing list.
Also not I need to do this within .htaccess

Answer 1

You can set the filename by sending the Content-disposition header:
https://serverfault.com/questions/101948/how-to-send-content-disposition-headers-in-apache-for-files

Answer 2

Ok so I believe that I'm restricted as to what headers I can set using .htaccess
So I have instead solved this using php.
I initially copied a download php script found here:
How to rewrite and set headers at the same time in Apache
However my file size was too big and so this was not working properly.
After a bit of googling I came across this: http://teddy.fr/blog/how-serve-big-files-through-php
So my complete solution is as follows...
First send requests to download script:
RewriteRule ^download/([^/\.]+)/?$ downloads/download.php?download=$1 [L]
Then get full filename, set headers, and serve it chunk by chunk:
<?php
if ($_GET['download']){
$file = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'media/downloads/' . $_GET['download'] . '.zip';
}
define('CHUNK_SIZE', 1024*1024); // Size (in bytes) of tiles chunk
// Read a file and display its content chunk by chunk
function readfile_chunked($filename, $retbytes = TRUE) {
$buffer = '';
$cnt =0;
// $handle = fopen($filename, 'rb');
$handle = fopen($filename, 'rb');
if ($handle === false) {
return false;
}
while (!feof($handle)) {
$buffer = fread($handle, CHUNK_SIZE);
echo $buffer;
ob_flush();
flush();
if ($retbytes) {
$cnt += strlen($buffer);
}
}
$status = fclose($handle);
if ($retbytes && $status) {
return $cnt; // return num. bytes delivered like readfile() does.
}
return $status;
}
$save_as_name = basename($file);
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
header('Pragma: no-cache');
header("Content-Type: application/zip");
header("Content-Disposition: disposition-type=attachment; filename=\"$save_as_name\"");
readfile_chunked($file);
?>