I created a vue JS app that creates brain tumor segmentations. Once the segmentation file is generated users receive a download link to it via email. My segmentations are generated from a python aiohttp backend, I plan to use long obscure URLs for the download links, however I still want to protect the downloads with passwords. Every generated download link should use its own password.
Classic webservers like Apache would solve this with a .htaccess file, but according to nginx docs this is a bad idea, even though one finds guides to do it anyway:
https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/examples/likeapache-htaccess/
So if .htaccess is not the way to go, how do I configure nginx to handle this use case?
Ideally my python backend would serve the generated .zip archive plus a password file put them in a folder and then nginx would serve these requiring users to only type in a password and no username.
Related
I have recently launched a website on GoDaddy hosting. I have keept some images and JavaScript files used in website, in separate folders. I want to prevent the users from browsing those images and files by simply appending the folder and file name in the website URL. For example
www.example.com/images/logo.png
If I understand correctly, you want to have html file with images, that shouldn't be accessible alone? If yes, then it cannot be done. You can watch for correct HTTP Referrer header, but it can be simply faked and it also makes it inaccessible for browsers that don't send referrer or having sending it forbidden for "privacy" reasons.
If you want hide files to be accessible only by server side scripts, ftp/scp, then you can try to use .htaccess (if GoDaddy runs on Apache) and correct configuration: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/howto/access.html
Another way could be hiding that files and creating one-shot token like this:
<img src=<?pseudocode GEN_TOKEN("file.jpg") ?> /> with another file serving these hidden files just for generated token, then deleting it from DB. Nevertheless, this will not protect anybody from downloading or accessing these files, if they want...
But, anyway, try to clarify your question better...
If you are keeping images/files in folder which is open to public, I guess you kept in that folder for purpose, you want public to access those images and files.
How public know images file name? Stop file content listing for your web site.
I am not aware which language you are using on web server, but in ASP.NET you may write module/ middle ware which can intercept in coming request and based on your logic (e.g. authentication and authorization) you can restrict access. All modern languages support this kind of functionality.
It seems I can't simply override Laravel's routing when trying to password protect a subfolder in views with htaccess. I put it and an .htpasswd file together in the folder that I wanted to create authentication for but with no effect.
The reason for this is I want to have "client's eyes only" folders for work in progress projects, e.g. "example.com/clients/my-client/". These folders will only contain static content.
I tried adding a folder tree in public but that doesn't seem to work either (I guess public content needs to be declared to avoid being routed?). I'd rather stick with having these client pages as views.
Ideas?
Running Laravel 4.2 on Apache.
Because of the way Laravel does routing, all URIs are actually virtual URIs, so you can't put .htaccess files within any directories, as they're not really there.
However, you can use Laravel's Auth system to protect your routes (either using basic auth or a more traditional login form system).
If you don't want to have to hook Laravel up to a database just to protect some directories there are a couple of solutions:
You can write your own Auth provider that will just lookup the details in a file or config array key. It's not super-difficult to do this, though it may seem a little over the top just for the purposes you have.
You could use the SQLite database driver, which stores the database in an easily-accessible file (in app/database/) so the database is at least kept alongside your code.
Let's say there's a website www.example.com/user/john. Accessing that link takes you to www.example.com/user/john/index.html.
There are files like www.example.com/user/john/picture.png and www.example.com/user/john/document.html. These are also accessible to the public, but there's no link to these from index.html.
Is there a systematic way to find out these files? I'm asking because I'm going to set up my website, and I also want to put up a few files that I don't necessarily want every one to see, only people who I give the link to. So I'm wondering how easy/hard it is to find out that those files exist in my directory.
Most importantly you have to switch off the possibility to just browse the directory with the browser. Every server has its own way to switch this off. Then you can use the proposed way of "security through obscurity".
Another way can be, to have a specific folder whos access is restricted by a http basic authentication. This can be configured in the .htaccess file which you put in the root folder of your directory you want to share only with specific people.
Just google ".htacces" and "basic authentication".
HTTP does not provide a directory listing method as such. Most web servers can be set up to provide a HTML-formatted directory listing if an index file such as index.html does not exist. If you provide an index file so that autoindexing does not happen (or if you disable autoindex by web server configuration), and if your "hidden" file names are hard to guess, they should be pretty hard to find. I sometimes publish such files in a directory with a random gibberish name.
"Share links" used by Dropbox, Picasa and other services do the same, they just use longer random file/directory names or random parameters in the URL.
To provide real security you'll want to set up https (SSL/TLS) so that any eavesdroppers on the network cannot easily look at the requested URLs, and authentication such as HTTP Basic Authentication with username/password. For less sensitive stuff, http to a random hidden directory will often do fine.
I'd like to create a simple site on NodeJS. For example, it has two files (app.js - main application file) and router,js (a url file). I'd like to know - if it possibke for anyone just to access mydomain.com/router.js to get the source code of my application? I'm asking 'cause for example in PHP you cant just access to php, as you know server just gives you the result of working of this PHP-file, but not the file itself. So, how to make my nodejs-app invisible for public access? Thanks!
I make sure that all files for Node.js are never in a path that is served by another web server such as Apache. That way, there is little danger of the source ever being served by accident.
My node program's and files go in /var/nodejs with a sub-folder for each application in Node. By default of course, Node will not serve ANYTHING unless you tell it to.
At the root of my Apache configuration, I make sure that ALL folders are secured so that I explicitly have to enable serving on any folder structure even under the /var/www folders that I use for all Apache sites.
So you are pretty safe with a default setup of Node and Apache as long as you keep the folders separate. Also Node will not serve source code accidentally, you would have to set up a Node server that read the file as text and wrote it to the http stream.
That depends on how you are using Node.js and what you are using for a web server in front of it. Unlike PHP running as CGI or as a module in Apache, node and the node application itself is a server.
If you have a webserver with your node source directory exposed then the url you provided in the question will most likely result in your source code being served. Even if you were using Apache and proxying to node, there is usually no output filter involved. Instead requests are passed to the backend node server which interprets them.
Hi suppose my site as www.xyz.com and i have a folder as _Userfile which have file uploaded by my users and if they download there file the link is www.xyz/_Userfile/userfile.doc now i want to learn this:
if some one has the link to other user file he can download it i want to solve this(privacy)
2: protect my site file from website downloader.
ASAP plz
Also i am using virtual directory to save my user files so i need a way to protect any type of file to be downloaded by any kind of software
You'll have to implement an authentication mechanism, and to serve those files through a server-side application (in PHP, Java or whatever), that checks if the authenticated user has the right to access a resource, then reads the resource from the disk and writes it to the HTTP response. The documents should be placed in a location that is not directly accessible through HTTP.
Just add index.html file in the folder _Userfile... This will prevent others accessing the whole directory listing in _UserFile folder! Simple isn't it?