I want to know how I view all files in a given domain. when you access a website you are typically taken to the homepage which is something like a index.html or home.html or home.html. Well what if there are files and folders in the root directory (right after public_html) that you want to access? If I want to access a file called test.txt via web browser and that file is in the same directory as home.html, is there any way I can know that it exists other than by typing the full domain followed by "/text.txt"? I have always wondered this.
the other way is to use the ftp protocol to access your site. go to windows explorer and type ftp://yoursitename and enter the user name and password in the dialog box. you will see the folders in the root directory
I think he's asking about seeing all of the files on someone ELSE's domain. There is no standard way to get a list of files from someone else's server. Even google has to do it by following every link. But now, they get help, and you can too. If you're randomly typing in file names or scanning for a list of files, look for sitemap.xml or similar files. If you hit one it may show you all of the pages that there are, or even some pages that are meant for search engines but not for browsers (i.e. no links to them). Other than stumbling across an index, you still have to do it by guessing filenames, or hacking.
For a lecher, it need a link to that file from a page. Example: there's a link to text.txt from index.html, so leecher now there's a text.txt file on that server.
Yes, I was talking about other peoples' websites. So there is no way then unless the files have links to them huh? I was thinking there might be some kind of a hacker tool. It seems like such a simple thing that the only thing protecting files in a domain's directory is the index.html or the home.html itself.