Secure File Download Workflow

Feature Requests
1

Would be possible for the BF Panel to have customizations where users could create files on the server, but the file links would be hidden in the DOM?

Maybe have a key:value system where a user requests a file to download and the request is passed back to the server and then the users is served the file?

I am using SureCart’s protected file system for some projects, but that plugin is more than smaller sites need.

Thanks for the consideration.

2

@Daniele

ChatGPT and I built this today for my own use case and it works fine, but:

  1. I’m not a security expert and i don’t want to introduce any vulnerabilities - i think i did an ok job mitigating that.
  2. its hard to manage this in the functions.php
  3. there has to be a better way :slight_smile:

but here is my thought process around the feature request.

function handle_file_download() {

if (isset($_GET['fileKey'])) {
    // Initialize the uploads directory and ensure the session is secure.
    $uploadDirInfo = wp_upload_dir();
    $baseDir = $uploadDirInfo['basedir'];

    // Define a mapping of keys to files. The actual mapping should be secure and not guessable.
    $fileMapping = array(
        'hfdiwekxnmsuwlrlxkjhsm' => '/2024/02/Test.txt',
    );

    // Sanitize the fileKey to avoid directory traversal or other injection attacks.
    $fileKey = preg_replace('/[^-a-zA-Z0-9_]/', '', $_GET['fileKey']);

    // Immediately terminate if the fileKey is not valid or does not exist in the mapping array.
    if (!array_key_exists($fileKey, $fileMapping)) {
        die('Error: Unauthorized file access.');
    }

    $filePath = $baseDir . $fileMapping[$fileKey];
    $resolvedPath = realpath($filePath);

    // Verify the file exists, is not a directory, is within the base directory, and is a regular file.
    if (!$resolvedPath || !file_exists($resolvedPath) || is_dir($resolvedPath) || strpos($resolvedPath, $baseDir) !== 0 || !is_file($resolvedPath)) {
        die('Error: Invalid file request.');
    }

    $fileName = basename($resolvedPath);

    // Set headers to serve the file download.
    header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
    header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . htmlspecialchars($fileName, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8') . '"');
    header('Expires: 0');
    header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate');
    header('Pragma: public');
    header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($resolvedPath));

    // Clear the output buffer and read the file to serve it.
    ob_clean();
    flush();
    readfile($resolvedPath);
    exit;
}

}

add_action(‘init’, ‘handle_file_download’);