too long

Question

I am trying to deny access to a folder on my server, in which there are files that can only be downloaded via a php script. The php script is used to force the download of files, just like that:

  function downloadFile($file){
        $file_name = $file;
        $mime = 'application/force-download';
        header('Pragma: public');
        header('Expires: 0');
        header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
        header('Cache-Control: private',false);
        header('Content-Type: '.$mime);
        header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.basename($file_name).'"');
        header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
        header('Content-Length: '.filesize($file_name));    // provide file size
        header('Connection: close');
        readfile($file_name);
        exit();
    }

And the htaccess must provide access only to localhost:

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 127.0.0.1

But every time the script download a zero bytes files with the same name, instead of the complete file. When I delete htaccess, however, everything is fine.. I can't figure out where is the error. Thanks for your help

Answer 1

The problem was that readfile(); need the absolute path of the file on the machine rather than a url.

e.g. /home/person/file.exe