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I'm trying to set up private files on Drupal 7 using Organic Groups. So far, I have

(1) one group type that although I appear to have set it up as such

enter image description here

(2) have private files set up in as below. (The webroot is /var/www/html.)

enter image description here

(3) Ensured the link on the OG's page is /system/files/test.example.doc,

enter image description here

(4) I inspected the database entry and this appears to be good. 

MariaDB [s7data]> select * from file_managed \G

*************************** XXX. row ***************************
      fid: 357
      uid: 103
 filename: test.pwww_.doc
      uri: private://test.pwww_.doc
 filemime: application/msword
 filesize: 9
   status: 1
timestamp: 1460390385
     uuid: 3a9877fc-77b2-47bc-8d4f-e8bc349f4c74

I am still able, using this link path do download that doc in a new browser without being logged in. In effect, this file is not private and does not require an authenticated session to download.

Question: Did I miss something? How does one set up private files correctly on Drupal 7?

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  • 1
    Your tmp directory should not be inside your private files.
    – Neograph734
    Apr 11, 2016 at 18:14

1 Answer 1

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Whenever possible it's recommended that you choose a directory located outside of your Drupal root folder (or actually outside your web root), which may be tricky if you are on a shared host. If you do have access though, you can choose a private directory which will be on the same level as your web root directory (often called public_html or www or similar).

From Working with files in Drupal 7 and Drupal 8.

The best practice is to place your private files outside of your webroot, so they should not be inside /var/www as that would make them accessible over the web. Place them in /var/somefolder instead, make sure your webserver has read write access to that folder. After that you should only be able to access them via /system/files/test.example.doc and it should not work for anonymous users.

UPDATE:

Above is based on the assumption you were accessing the file via example.com/drupal-private-file-system/test.example.doc. this can be prevented by using the linked best practise guide.

If an anonymous user can access your files with on url like example.com/system/files/test.example.doc you have a problem with your permissions and anonymous users are given the permission to download private files.

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  • Which permission is associated with private files? That is something else that I looked for.
    – Rick
    Apr 11, 2016 at 18:28
  • Depends, are you using File Entity?
    – Neograph734
    Apr 11, 2016 at 18:30
  • Oh, apparently there is no such permission in vanilla Drupal... :s. That is strange because access should have been restricted then.
    – Neograph734
    Apr 11, 2016 at 18:32
  • Is the file attached to a publicly visible entity? For instance if you attach a private file to a node and the anonymous user has View published content permissions (which is default) I believe the file also showed up. You might need to make sure the parent entity where the file is attached to is blocked to anonymous users by permissions. See: drupal.org/documentation/modules/…
    – Neograph734
    Apr 11, 2016 at 18:38
  • The idea is that files aren't private until you explicitly make them private - it's a bit counter-intuitive to start with. See hook_file_download for more details
    – Clive ♦
    Apr 11, 2016 at 19:10

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