Accessing and downloading your files via HTTP

Your Appbox has a built-in web server that serves files from your ~/www/ directory. This allows you to browse and download your files directly from a browser.

Setup

Connect to your box via SSH — see the KiTTY guide if you are on Windows.

Navigate to your ~/www/ directory:

cd ~/www/

Create a symlink to the folder you want to expose. In this example we use ~/torrents/data/:

ln -s ~/torrents/data/ data

Running ls -la should now show the symlink:

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Type cd to return to your home directory.

Password protection

Directory listing is disabled by default for security reasons. To enable it and protect it with a password, create an .htaccess file and a password file.

First, create the password file using your actual home path (found in your Box details):

htpasswd -c /home/HD/USERNAME/.http-password USERNAME

You will be prompted to choose a password.

Then create the .htaccess file in the symlinked folder:

nano ~/www/data/.htaccess

Paste the following, replacing the path with your actual home path:

Options +Indexes

AuthType Basic
AuthName "My files"
AuthUserFile /home/HD/USERNAME/.http-password
Require valid-user

Press Ctrl+O to save and Ctrl+X to exit.

Accessing your files

HTTP (unencrypted)

Your HTTP link is visible in your Account details page.

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You can also type it directly:

http://username.servername.bysh.me

⚠️ Modern browsers default to HTTPS and will show a security warning or fail to load if you just type username.servername.bysh.me. You must explicitly include http:// in the URL.

To access your exposed folder:

http://username.servername.bysh.me/data

HTTPS (recommended)

The standard bysh.me URL does not support HTTPS. For a fully secure connection, configure a custom domain via Manage Domains in your Appbox dashboard. Bytesized will automatically provision a Let's Encrypt certificate for your domain.

Once configured, your files will be accessible over HTTPS at your custom domain — for example:

https://yourdomain.com/data

Security note: Over plain HTTP, both your .htpasswd credentials and the files themselves are transmitted unencrypted. Use HTTPS whenever possible, especially on public networks.