Prevent Downloading My Web Pages

[Brenda Watsen]

Hi,

I installed the new sever version of ubuntu.
I setup my website and some folders in the directory: /var/www/
These are:

- index.html
- pics (pics/home_page)
- webfiles

After I setup all this I asked a friend to look at my website.
He then told me that he had download all my contet from my website and I took a look.

Everything was the same. I was very scared of him.
At that moment I had a feeling about what a hacker can do:(.

Questions

1) Is there a solution to protect the content (data) in the /var/www/ directory from downloading (files, pictures, scripts)

Thank you very much :)

[Dr Small]

Maybe I'm not following you correctly, but HTTP is setup so things can be downloaded.

[HermanAB]

Yup, the whole purpose of a web site is to allow other people to download (read) your files. In web server parlance a page read is known as a 'Get' request. This is perfectly safe, since Apache doesn't normally allow things to be uploaded.

[hyper_ch]

I think his friend got prompted to download the indexfile instead of having it just displayed in the browser

[Brenda Watsen]

He download everything that was in the www directory.
Everything below:

- index.html
- pics (pics/home_page)
- web files

So I think that if everyone can do this then they can put my content also in their web server.

I could have other things in the www directory that he could download.

He used a software called: HTTrack Website Copier
He show me all the content he downloaded from my web server.

I don't think this is a good thing.
If everybody can do this then we don't have to pay for a website.
We can just completely download a website we like. A website that someone payed for we can simply sit on our chair and download it.

Is there someone who knows how to avoid people doing this?
Maybe someone know a website with information how to avoid this.

Thank you in advanced

[szim90]

HTTrack's website has some suggestions to prevent people from using website downloaders (like HTTrack) - http://www.httrack.com/html/abuse.html

[renesilva]

If he could see the "Index of /" page of your directory he could download it all, just add an index file on each folder you have (index.html), that way he wont see that directory. Or you can configure the directives on that folder with some directives (like Options -Indexes) and he won't see this indexes Files. You can look more options http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#directory

[hyper_ch]

if people can see the website on their computer then they can download it. There's no way around.