Protect/hide file

Abhishek Reddy's picture

He has: 3,348 posts

Joined: Jul 2001

Hey,

I have a file on my server that I do not want being accessible by the public. How would I be able to protect it?

I have a PHP script calling the file using file(), and this returns a Permission Denied error if I CHMOD the file to 640.

So, I need the file to be available only to the script, and nothing else. Any ideas? (I'm not very familiar with file management etc.) Sticking out tongue

Thanks,
Abhishek. Smiling

He has: 1,016 posts

Joined: May 2002

The safest way is to place this file _outside_ of your public_html directory. A second way would be to rename this file to ".whatever" (filename starts with a dot). This will make it not show in the directory listing, but still available if someone knows it exists and types in the full path (i.e. domain.com/.whatever).

Abhishek Reddy's picture

He has: 3,348 posts

Joined: Jul 2001

Thanks for the reply. I am already using the .name thing... and I don't have access to anything outside the public dir. Oh well.

He has: 1,016 posts

Joined: May 2002

Another thing you could do is to name it filename.cgi or filename.pl. This way, if someone tries to load it, it will get a 500 error.

Abhishek Reddy's picture

He has: 3,348 posts

Joined: Jul 2001

Thanks mate. Smiling

He has: 1,016 posts

Joined: May 2002

You're welcome. I'm glad I could help.

They have: 447 posts

Joined: Oct 1999

if you name it .htwhatever it will not be web accessible at all, apache will not serve it (assuming your server is running apache)

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