I have a text file in my host root and I want to use it in my web application via my program but I want that clients can't see it directly, for example when they request "www.MyDomain.com\textFile.txt" an exception occurs.
How can I do that?
Thanks
File access restriction
Hi.
I have a text file in my host root and I want to use it in my web application via my program but I want that clients can't see it directly, for example when they request "www.MyDomain.com\textFile.txt" an exception occurs.
How can I do that?
Thanks
I have a text file in my host root and I want to use it in my web application via my program but I want that clients can't see it directly, for example when they request "www.MyDomain.com\textFile.txt" an exception occurs.
How can I do that?
Thanks
Guest UserPosted Jul 17, 2011, 9:34 PM
Zoran HorvatPosted Jul 17, 2011, 5:01 PM
Zoran
Suthish NairPosted Jul 17, 2011, 4:21 PM
Zoran HorvatPosted Jul 17, 2011, 2:02 PM
Zoran
Majid KamaliPosted Jul 17, 2011, 1:59 PM
I mean I create a handler that runs for every file request from my site, then if requested file is what I don't want to show to client, I show an exception page to client.
Zoran HorvatPosted Jul 17, 2011, 1:43 PM
Direct way to do that is to restrict users which can access the file. However, if you're not owning the server, but your website is hosted by some company, this won't work because you typically won't be able to change settings.
Hence, you have to work around the problem, and here are couple of thoughts that I've got how to do this:
1. Create dynamic page (ASP, ASP.NET, PHP...) which generates empty HTML in response, but inside it has a huge comment block which actually contains data you wanted to have. You can format comment lines so that every line starts with specific word. Then, from your application, ignore all other lines and remove that word from the beginning of every useful line to get pure data.
2. Use some of the HTTP special characters in file name, which are allowed in file systems. I have thought of # as one option, so you might call your file some#thing.txt. However, this solution can be broken if encoded URL is used (you can access such file from Web as some%23thing.txt).
Consequently, if you don't have access to the IIS (or whatever Web server it is), and you can't set up access rights yourself, then I'd suggest you solution #1, and that is to create active file which would generate empty response if accessed. Since visitors have no means of reading server-side script source code, they can't see the comments either and your data are safe.
Zoran
Guest UserPosted Jul 17, 2011, 11:04 AM