I would put them in a directory not accessible by clients, and have node
route urls with specific hashes, for each file for each user.  The route
could be something like /$user/download/$hash (anything with a $ in front
of it will vary based off of user).  The combination of $user and $hash
should be stored in a database so you can find out if it is valid and what
file it should be.  Then send the file.

I have never implemented something like this, but this is how I would
probably do it.


On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 5:45 PM, C. Mundi <[email protected]> wrote:

> This is obviously a solved problem.  I don't want to reinvent the wheel.
>
> Imagine a digital music store.  I have a set of static files which I need
> to serve only to authenticated users.  So the set of accessible files
> depends on the user.  How do I let each user get the files she is entitled
> to and no other files?
>
> Bad Idea 1: security by obscurity: hide the files behind query strings
> generated on the fly for session.user in the form of nasty looking hard to
> guess hashes.  Ugly hack and vulnerable to brute force hash collision.
> Yuck!
>
> Bad Idea 2: set up an instance of node-static.Server() for each
> authenticated session, specifically serving a directory created on the fly
> for that session and containing symlinks to all (and only) files for which
> session.user has privileges.  The main server would redirect requests for
> files to the ad hoc static server.  Kludgus maximus!
>
> Good Idea: what you tell me.  :)
>
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