Using Remote Files when Developing Locally with Stage File Proxy Module

How to install and configure the Stage File Proxy module to serve remote images on your local Drupal site.

As this module is only going to be needed on pre-production sites, it would be better to configure this within your settings.php or settings.local.php file. We do this using the $conf array which removes the need to configure the module through the UI and store the values in the database.

// File proxy to the live site.
$conf['stage_file_proxy_origin'] = 'http://www.example.com';

// Don't copy the files, just link to them.
$conf['stage_file_proxy_hotlink'] = TRUE;

// Image style images are the wrong size otherwise.
$conf['stage_file_proxy_use_imagecache_root'] = FALSE;

If the origin site is not publicly accessible yet, maybe it's a pre-live or staging site, and protected with a basic access authentication, you can include the username and password within the origin URL.

$conf['stage_file_proxy_origin'] = 'http://user:password@prelive.example.com';