Secure way to store files in web server?

Question

I want my files to be secure in my web server. Only authenticated users to access those files should be able to access those files. I thought of storing files in database as

Answer 1

The best way is to store the file reference in Database. The file itself will be stored in the server filesystem. The complexity of this is making sure there is reference integrity between the database file reference and the existing file in the server filesystem. Some database such as sql server 2008 have feature that maintain the integrity of the file references to the actual file itself.

Other than that securing the file itself in the server depends on the OS where permissions can be configured to the specific folder where the file reside.