make Apache2 serve directory index in json - linux

When enabled and privileged, the mod_dir module in Apache2 automatically serves a HTML formatted page with the contents of a directory when a directory is requested which does not contain an index.html file. I am looking for an easy way to make these directory contents machine readable; Preferebly have the contents of the directory formatted as a JSON array containing the subdirs/subfiles instead of an HTML page.
What would be a an easy way to accomplish this, that works on most standard configurations of Apache2.2? (no php scripts please)

What would be a an easy way to accomplish this, what would work on most standard configurations of Apache2.2?
There isn't one. You'd need to either modify and rebuild mod_autoindex, or you'd need to redirect to a script or generated JSON file on the server.

Related

How to prevent website being grabbed by IDM( or anyother webstie grabber)?Is there any way to prevent it?

Using website grabbers whole website with folder structure can be downloaded.
Is there any way to prevent this?
If so,how?
The only way to protect a websites markup is not to publish it. If you want your users to see something they need to get the HTML markup and the images, that should be displayed. And therefore the files need to be accessible. And if your files are accessible every user/bot/crawler/grabber can save these files.
The best way is to put a few files like the index page in the main directory and call the other sub pages in it. If using php then you may do the following.
Say keep the index.php in the main folder and keep the homepage.php in a directory called includes and use the homepage in the index.php via include function in php.
Now add a .htaccess file to the includes folder which must contain
"deny from all"
This way users can use the page but will not have direct access to the files. So will be for the grabber.

Keep URL for file, but change directory?

I have a file hosted at http://example.com/old-directory/document.pdf.
I'm not able to change the link, but I need to change the directory the file is downloaded from.
Current dir
/my/web/server/current/files/document.pdf
New dir
/my/web/server/new/files/document.pdf
What's the best method of changing the directory without changing the URL with PHP/Apache?
You can use a .htaccess to remap that location to a different directory (or just that file).
Create a .htaccess file and use this syntax to "redirect" the file:
Redirect /olddirectory/oldfile.html /newdirectory/newfile.html
This will send the new file instead of the old one when accessed.
If you need to do something more specific, this generator will work fine.

Allow file access from code, but block from browser?

I have my .htaccess file, and I have a folder with config files in there, and they contain sensitive content, e.g. database details etc. What I would like to know is, how can I block access from a browser, but allow them to be accessed via my scripts?
I know that this can be achieved inside the PHP files themselves, but I'd rather use the .htaccess approach where possible.
Is this actually able to be done? I've attempted it before, but in the process of denying access to the file from the browser, it also denied access from the coding.
I have looked into this before, and some of the answers I came across suggested changing the extension to something like .inc, and then denying access to that. However, a couple of issues I have with that is that a) It instantly alerts anyone that can see that filename, for whatever reason, that it is a config file. Also, b) If my denial code breaks, browsers will not parse it as a PHP file, but rather an inc file, meaning it will print the code in the browser.
Basically, can this be done within a .htaccess file, or do I need to put something in the header of every config file?
Put these files outside of your web server's document root.
You can still access them via your server-side scripts, but this ensures no direct access to them from the outside world.
The conventional advice is to place such files "outside of your web server's document root". This is all well and good, but many shared hosting offerings only give write access to your public_html directory.
I use a simple convention: any private content (that is not URI addressable) is prefixed by an underscore or in a directory that's name is prefixed with an underscore (eg. _private or _include). I then include this rewrite rule in my DOCROOT .htaccess file:
# if a forbidden directory or file name (starting with a . or /)
# then raise 404 Fatal return
RewriteRule (^|/)[_.] - [F]
Remember that you'll need to prefix with a RewriteEngine On and/or include this at the top of any .htaccess file with the engine enabled.
Note that the "." prefix picks up files such as .htaccess.
Please use a framework, these kind of issues just doesn't need to exist. If you insist though, write a .htaccess to redirect every request to a single index.php in the root directory, which then have more logic to determine whether or not the request is for a valid file and include them, otherwise generate 404 or 403. If you need performance for static files, then use RewriteCond to exclude specific directories or file type from the index.php check.

codeigniter controlled access to a url/folder

I am stuck at the situation where I want the url, which contains a folder having some files (html, swf etc.), to be accessible after I validate the user.
For example.
The url to access is:
A - http://mysite.com/files/version/1/file.swf
And this above url is accessible from the link,
B - http://mysite.com/view/1
I have implemented a way to hide the URL A from a normal user but if the user somehow is a semi-techie person then he can know the swf file location from firebug or other tools. So, to make the access-to-file secure what should I do?
If a user somehow knows the first url(A) and then enters it in browser, i have to check if the user is logged-in and if validation is done it lets the url A to be loaded.
Since, in CI, the controller names cannot be named same as the folders in the root directory, in this case i cannot have a controller called “files”. So, the only option left to make this secure access to url work is to use htaccess rule/cond. If this is the only option, then how can it be achieved by htaccess and if not, then what other options do i have.
Will the codeigniter's URI Routes work because when i tried like this:
$route[‘files/version/1/(:any)’] = “view/$1”;
and it doesnt work, maybe because there is no controller/function/param as files/versions/1 ...
looking for quick help. Thanks
There isn't a sure-fire way to do it without, for example, using .htpasswd.
One thing you could implement is sort of "Security by Obscurity". In that case you could redirect all requests to a file to the URL http://mysite.com/view/file-id and then instead of loading the requested file directly, you would load a .php template with the appropriate headers - be it an image, a flash file or anything else.
But it really depends on how the files are going to be managed, since every file will need an entry in the database and you would have to output different headers for different types of files. And if someone still manages to guess the path to the file, it will be directly accessible.

How to prevent files settings xml file from being downloaded by entering url but allow php to see

I have an xml file on the server containing details to the database server. I don't want anyone to be able to access it via url but PHP should be able to load the file
Two ways:
Simple move all those kinds of files outside the webroot, for example /application instead of /public_html/myapplication. You only need accessible pages (index.php etc.) inside the webroot.
Or if that's not possible/too hard, add this in .htaccess in the folder that contains the XML file (but it cannot contain files that should be accessible)
.
Order Allow,Deny
Deny from All
you could use .htaccess file: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/howto/htaccess.html
but, why put it in XML? put it in PHP as variables, then even if they visit the page they won't be able to see it.

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