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I'm in the process of setting up a development environment so that I can I test &nbsp;the posted solution. 
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Why not simply install the Jdownloads component which will allow you to restrict access quite simply to what ever user group you require!<br />
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<a href="http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,2849/Itemid,35/" rel="ugc">http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,2849/Itemid,35/</a><br />
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You can then edit the links within your articles to go to the download section of your site whereby only those with access will be able to get hold of the file/s.<br />
<br />
Lee
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I'm using Joomla to manage my website. Certain pages of my website are restricted using Joomla's access levels to registered users. <br />
<br />
On these restricted pages I include links to files which can be dowloaded<br />
e.g a link to &nbsp;&quot;dir1/file.zip&quot;<br />
where dir1 is a subdirectory of public_html.<br />
<br />
This method is insecure because if a user types in the url<br />
<a href="http://www.mywebsite.org/dir1/file.zip" rel="ugc">www.mywebsite.org/dir1/file.zip</a><br />
they can download the file without having to login.<br />
<br />
Is there a way I can restrict access to this file so that only registered users can download it?<br />
<br />

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I'm using Joomla to manage my website. Certain pages of my website are restricted using Joomla's access levels to registered users. 

On these restricted pages I include links to files which can be dowloaded
e.g a link to  "dir1/file.zip"
where dir1 is a subdirectory of public_html.

This method is insecure because if a user types in the url
www.mywebsite.org/dir1/file.zip
they can download the file without having to login.

Is there a way I can restrict access to this file so that only registered users can download it?



Control access to a file using joomla

Web development includes all aspects of presenting content on intranets and the Internet, including delivery development, protocols, languages and standards, server software, browser clients, databases and multimedia generation.

Web Development

A web server refers to the software that helps to deliver web content that can be accessed either through the Internet or through an intranet. The primary function of a web server is to store, process and deliver web pages to clients. The communication between client and server takes place using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The most common use of web servers is to host websites, but there are other uses such as gaming, data storage, running enterprise applications, handling email, FTP, etc.