Strange file_get_contents behavior from same server - http-status-code-404

Question

This issue is a bit strange. I have a URL that opens well in any browser.
I can get the contents of this URL using file_get_contents() function from my local server or any other server, but when I run the page with file_get_contents() function on the same server, it gives 404 error.
file_get_contents() is enabled on this server because it can read content of URLs hosted on other servers.
Let me explain a bit more in detail.
In need to read URL1 on my web server from URL2 on the same server.
URL1 can be read from any other server but not from the URL2 as both URLs are on the same server.
I guess it has to do something with server settings.
Thank you!

Answer 1

You may wanna try CURL instead of file_get_contents() :
function get_web_page( $url )
{
$options = array(
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true, // return web page
CURLOPT_HEADER => false, // don't return headers
CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true, // follow redirects
CURLOPT_ENCODING => "", // handle all encodings
CURLOPT_USERAGENT => "spider", // who am i
CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER => true, // set referer on redirect
CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT => 120, // timeout on connect
CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 120, // timeout on response
CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10, // stop after 10 redirects
);
$ch = curl_init( $url );
curl_setopt_array( $ch, $options );
$content = curl_exec( $ch );
$err = curl_errno( $ch );
$errmsg = curl_error( $ch );
$header = curl_getinfo( $ch );
curl_close( $ch );
$header['errno'] = $err;
$header['errmsg'] = $errmsg;
$header['content'] = $content;
return $header;
}
$x=get_web_page('http://yourserver/the_script.php');
echo $x["content"];