ruby - How to enable CORS in Rails 4 App

Question

I'm just about to pull my hair out... I've been trying to enable CORS in this Rails app since the morning and it just doesn't work. I've tried this, using Rack Cors Gem, this answer and this post all without success.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Here's my js:

      var req = new XMLHttpRequest();

      if ('withCredentials' in req) {
            // req.open('GET', "https://api.github.com/users/mralexgray/repos", true);
            req.open('GET', "http://www.postcoder.lc/postcodes/" + value, true);
            // Just like regular ol' XHR
            req.onreadystatechange = function() {
                if (req.readyState === 4) {
                    if (req.status >= 200 && req.status < 400) {
                        // JSON.parse(req.responseText) etc.
                        console.log(req.responseText);
                    } else {
                        // Handle error case
                    }
                }
            };
            req.send();
        }

When I try this url (from an external client): https://api.github.com/users/mralexgray/repos that works ok, I'm assuming the problem is with my Rails API. Am I wrong?

EDIT: Currently I have this in my controller:

skip_before_filter :verify_authenticity_token
before_filter :cors_preflight_check
after_filter :cors_set_access_control_headers

# For all responses in this controller, return the CORS access control headers.
def cors_set_access_control_headers
  headers['Access-Control-Allow-Origin'] = '*'
  headers['Access-Control-Allow-Methods'] = 'POST, GET, OPTIONS'
  headers['Access-Control-Max-Age'] = "1728000"
end

# If this is a preflight OPTIONS request, then short-circuit the
# request, return only the necessary headers and return an empty
# text/plain.

def cors_preflight_check
  headers['Access-Control-Allow-Origin'] = '*'
  headers['Access-Control-Allow-Methods'] = 'POST, GET, OPTIONS'
  headers['Access-Control-Allow-Headers'] = 'X-Requested-With, X-Prototype-Version'
  headers['Access-Control-Max-Age'] = '1728000'
end

Answer 1

You should use rack cors

It provides a nice DSL, to use in your config/application.rb, instead of the messy header work and before filters.

A very permissive would be as follows, but of course, you'll have to tailor it a bit.

use Rack::Cors do
  allow do
    origins '*'
    resource '*', headers: :any, methods: :any
  end  
end