accessing files above the web directory

[kaliok]

Hi I am having trouble locating an answer to the exact question but I am trying to do the following:

 

Place video/image files in a folder outside the web directory so that there is no direct access to the files in that folder. I believe that this would be the case if I place it outside the web directory. If I wrong, please feel free to correct me on that too. However, I would like to create a php script that can access the files. Is this possible? If so, how would I acheive this and what functions would I use to access them?  I would prefer to not have to use the htaccess file.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice...

[hvle]

Yes, it is possible. You need to make sure the user account that owned by the webserver have access to this folder and open this file like you open a file on the local machine.

 

[haku]

you can access it by using ../ to step up a level in your folder structure, or by accessing an absolute path on the machine using something like /home/username/foldername

[.josh]

also make sure your CHMOD for the folder and file allows for the script to access it.

[kaliok]

Thanks for your responses... I am afraid I am still somewhat at a loss here, my directory structure looks something like this:

 

webdir

somefolder

someotherfolder

privateimagesfolder

 

I have placed the image in the privateimages folder, I can't use  ../privateimagesfolder/myimage.jpg in an html img tag to step up a level because of course it keeps the structure of the domain in front of the url. So perhaps there is a way to do this with a php function that grabs the file using the absolute path etc. I have tried using fopen and fpassthru but have not been able to get the hang of them nor am I sure that they are the right functions to use.

 

Any further help is much appreciated....

 

 

[haku]

You showed us where the images are, but you didnt tell us where the script is. Without both, we can't tell you the path.

[kaliok]

Sorry. The script is sitting in a file directly in the webdir.

 

So it would be webdir/myphpscript.php

 

The image would be here:

 

privateimagesfolder/myimage.jpg

 

I have found what is referred to as "path for scripting" in the hosts control panel area - it looks something like this:

 

/home/linux/thenameofmyurl.com/user/

 

(user has not been changed - it is the word the hosts have in the path - and it is NOT me hiding my real username)

 

fopen is allowed by the host, and I assumed the path would be something like this:

 

fopen("/home/linux/thenameofmyurl.com/user/private/newwebsite.jpg", "r");

 

OR

 

fopen("../home/linux/thenameofmyurl.com/user/private/newwebsite.jpg", "r");

 

Thanks again for any help.

 

 

 

[phpzone]

This will work, however sometimes you may run into SAFE_MODE or OPEN_BASEDIR restrictions if these modes are set on the server.  In which case, modification of php.ini is required.  You may be able to change in an htaccess file, not sure if you can change these through htaccess though, anyone?

 

PS. Normally if my structure is like this:

 

private/

httpdocs/myfile.php

 

I would do:

 

<?php

  $filename = dirname(dirname(__FILE__)) . '/private/privatefile.txt';
  $fp = fopen( $filename, "a+" ); 
  ...
  ...

?>

 

I found using ../ can have problems on some machines when we have tried to install some open source software and changing to dirname fixed them.

[kaliok]

Thanks for your help...Ok... So I think that is finding the file data but it might not be processing it right.. The following is the code I am using. I am suffering from two errors. The first is a problem with the getting the file to embed in an html page.

 

It is downloading the entire php file with the embedded code in it, I think that is because of the php header function, but I believe I still need it for the fopen and fpassthru commands:

 

<?
$fp = fopen("/private/privateimage.jpg", "r");
header("Content-type: application/jpg");
fpassthru($fp);
fclose($fp);
?>

 

I get the following error when I go and look at the code - it actually downloads the php file!

 

Warning:  fopen(/private/newwebsite.jpg) [<a href='function.fopen'>function.fopen</a>]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/linux/myurl.com/user/htdocs/myphpfile.php on line 33

 

Now that I am looking at file that was downloading I notice that if I do leave the ../private in there I get a lot of mess (lots of characters and ascii code) being put into the file as if it were not passing the file correctly. I could see Adobe Photoshop in amongst the mess of characters so I guess it got to the file and was reading it. Perhaps I am not using fpassthrou correctly

 

Ultimately I am trying to get this to work for movie files, so perhaps before we go any further with this and the data has to be fixed in some way I thought I would add that into the pot.

 

Perhaps too, I am going about this the wrong way, I really just want to stop people from accessing files in multiple folders without having the right password (I can make the login system and check to see if someone is logged in using php) but if people work out the full url to the folder and file, they will not have to go through the login procedure. I didn't go down the htaccess route because I would have had to rewrite the file every time a user is added,deleted or edited. So I came to the conclusion that placing the files in a folder above the webdir would be the best solution.

 

Thanks again for help.