I've been developing a website on a local web server and I'm pretty happy with it. I'm about ready to deploy it but I've been looking at how to limit folder access via htaccess. My concern is I grab some php variables from a document on the web server and I'm worried that by denying htaccess ill also prevent the php file from reading and writing to this document. Is this the case? If so how would I go about setting up a hierarchy in which my php can read and write to my document but people can't access the folder that its in?
.htaccess is a means to configure a server on a per-directory basis.
If you are going to be writing files using PHP, then it is going to be doing so using the file system (unless you are using HTTP PUT or similar, but you'd know if you were), so the server configuration is irrelevant.
Apache will simply forward your requests to the PHP interpreter. Once the request is past Apache, all rewrites/folder restrictions have already been validated, which means PHP never knows about them (and it shouldn't).
Htaccess is a webserver restriction, if you can access the page, then PHP doesn't care if you have it or not, so you can fopen / edit your files from PHP without problems. Of course if you write your file to a (different) directory that is htaccess protected, the user will have to insert the password to read it
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I am writing some php scripts that I am using for personal reasons. One thing I noticed that if I type in the directory on the browser I am able to see all files in the directory.
How can I prevent the browser from viewing any of the files in a directory? I want to be able to send requests to the server and let the server run the script. Can someone point me in the right direction? Should I configure the .htaccess file? If so, what should I be looking for?
FYI: I am on a shared hosted server.
the fast way to do that creat .htaccess ex: under /public_html/
and put this code inside it
Options -Indexes
all about .htaccess to more information
Knowing that a deny from all directive will traverse all sub-directories and files below it, and ignoring the obvious caveats of "if you forget" to copy the .htaccess file or if you typo creating an .htaccess file...
Is there a risk in security between storing non-public files outside of the DocumentRoot versus placing an .htaccess file with a deny from all directive in each non-public directory in the DocumentRoot?
There are a few things to consider here:
.htaccess is only going to protect your file from access over the
web. For example, suppose you have a typical FTP server setup with
virtual users who are restricted to the document root. If an
attacker gains access to your FTP server (which is not that
far-fetched given how insecure most FTP configurations are), they
will have access to both the .htaccess file and any of your
protected files that are in the document root.
That was just one example that may not apply to your environment,
but the idea that I'm really trying to get at is that .htaccess
files don't give you that much depth in your security. They protect
you in one context (access over the Internet) but not in others.
Your server administrator has the ability to disable specific .htaccess
directives, to disable certain Apache modules (which your .htaccess file
may use), and even to disable the use of .htaccess files period. If you
don't have control over your Apache configuration (which I'm assuming
is the case since you're choosing to overwrite it with an .htaccess file),
you also don't really have control over whether your .htaccess file is going
to be respected. It really comes down to your relationship with your
host/server administrator and what they decide to allow.
Finally, if the .htaccess file is writable by the user your Apache
server is running as, a determined hacker can modified that file.
Ex. if you're using Wordpress, many popular themes will demand write
access to the .htaccess file so that they can control URL rewriting.
I'd imagine some other Content Management Systems do the same.
With all that said, using an .htaccess file (or directly altering your Apache configuration files) may still be a perfectly valid security measure for you. It depends on what your environment as a whole looks like -- how your server is configured, what you're trying to protect, etc. Hopefully I at least gave you some things to think about.
What is the actual difference between executable and read permissions on a shared linux server, meaning, how exactly does that relate to what a web visitor can do with, for example a php file? Using godaddy shared hosting, for example, under basic permissions, if web user is not readable, but is executable, the same thing happens as when it is readable but not executable - the php file executes. Also, on a shared linux server, what exactly does making a file writable for web user- someone who doesn't have access to server login but visits the page through a browser do?
The basic answer is: nothing. Visitors to a website aren't directly accessing any of the files, PHP or otherwise. They send an HTTP request to the server service (wow, that's terrible wording) on the computer (e.g.: Apache), which then loads the page, executes the PHP, etc. So when you're changing permissions, the pertinent permissions to change are what permissions the Apache account (which, depending on the distro, can be either nobody or www-data) has on those files. As for what the permissions actually do, this Wikipedia page describes it quite well.
You can test this yourself if you have a Linux box. Take a directory with files in it and sudo chmod -R 744 it. Then, try to ls -l into it. You'll be able to see file names, but not any other information about the file (including the contents - nanoing any file in that directory will result in creating a new file).
You have to remember that all this relies on what the web server wants to do, since everything has to go through the web server. It's not like reading a file from a disk. So when you request "index.php" or "index.cgi", you are not reading the contents of the file. The web server will see that the file you're requesting is a program, and it will run the program. Instead of outputting the contents of the file, it will output whatever the program outputs. This is simply a setting, and has nothing to do with permissions. Also, you do not have the ability to change this setting if you're using a shared hosting account.
on a shared linux server, what exactly does making a file writable [...] do?
You can't make a file "writable" with HTTP. Again, this is not like accessing a file system on a local drive. You can make a server-side program that can handle file uploads, but again, this is has nothing to do with permissions.
I hope this is what you meant. Let me know if you meant something else.
Security question: Is it a good practice to name folders on the server by names that are difficult to guess (8+ symbols, not a simple "admin" or "services")? I'm asking about folders that contain not just icons or .js files or .css files, but .php files and are protected by .htaccess file (deny from all).
No. Security through obscurity isn't.
Plus it's really irritating for anybody using the machine via a shell, ftp, etc.
What would it protect against? Regardless of names, folder access should be handled by the machine's and/or network's normal security mechanisms. If they get past that, it doesn't matter what your artifacts are named–Ur PwNeD.
Good practice would be to keep your PHP files outside your web server's document root. E.g., if your doc root is /var/www, then you might have there just a single index.php file, and all that file does is launch your app:
set_include_path('/something/besides/var/www');
require_once 'foo.php';
require_once 'bar.php';
do_something();
This way, your web server doesn't even know that the PHP files exist, and can't serve them even if you have an accidentally misconfigured .htaccess.
This is security through obscurity. While there is no harm in doing it , It doesn't give anything in terms of security.
what is htaccess file? how to create and write that? what is the advantage of using htaccess file?
.htaccess files provide a way to make configuration changes on a per-directory basis. See the official Apache documentation for .htaccess files.
.htaccess allows you to override Apache's (and other servers') main configuration file for a particular directory (and all its subdirectories). To use .htaccess you simply create a new file and name it ".htaccess" (yes, the name is very unusual because it actually consist of only a very long file extension), upload it to you server (if you want to affect your entire site than put is in your root folder), and finally add some directives.
If you wand to see what sort of things you can configure with .htaccess check out this very accessible tutorial: 5 most useful applications of the .htaccess file.
For something more comprehensive visit guide .htaccess.
Hope this helps
This is majorly used for configuration on server the generally things involve in usage are following.
-(redirecting server to specific file)
Redirect permanent /index.html (new path)
For more you can refer to http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/howto/htaccess.html#related