Access html files / video files outside htdocs folder

Question

Trying to protect video files that are done in camtsia which outputs html/with flash embed video files.

Not sure how I would access them using PHP. I've searched stackoverflow and found using alias would be an option? Is that still secure though? Is that the best way to go? Or should I try to purue a file open operations using PHP.

It needs to serve an html page which has.js.swf files along in the same protected dir.

Any help or direction is appreciated.

Answer 1

You would use readfile to access the file and the header function to forge the content. Make sure the www-data user, which is the Apache user and PHP uses it to access the filsystem, has permission on that folder.

header('Content-type: video/avi');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="videodownload.avi"');
readfile('/var/videos/myvideo.avi');