Making sure nobody can view the file directory on my machine

Question

How can I prevent external users from somehow getting a list of files that are on my machine?

For instance, My website is in folder /htdocs/ and I have some other random documents in there too.

How do I make sure that the user can only see the site and can never get an overview of what files I have on that harddrive?

Answer 1

With Apache, you can create a .htaccess file like this:

 Options -Indexes

For more details, check out How to Prevent a Directory Listing of Your Website with .htaccess

Answer 2

assuming apache look at this page for some good security tips

in specific add to httpd.conf

<Directory />
     Order Deny,Allow
     Deny from all
 </Directory>

<Directory /htdocs>
     Order Deny,Allow
     Allow from all
 </Directory>

Answer 3

Also, you could restrict the apache user via SELinux policy. If you are on a system with SELinux that is...

Look at his article on secure containers (lightweight virtual machines). Perhaps for the more paranoid or those who have problems of scale.