> I still strongly believe that mhttpd should not serve arbitrary files (only serve files explicitly listed in ODB) or as next best option,
> only serve files from subdirectories explicitly listed in ODB.
> 
> If people have access to the ODB, the can put the directory /etc/ into the ODB and again read that way /etc/passwd.
>

I suggest a more practical approach.

The default configuration should be secure (not serve /etc/passwd and .ssh/id_rsa.pub right out of the box). If users change things,
it is their business, we have to trust them to know what they are doing.

Still we should protect them from trivial security mistakes. Here is an example. Right now we set ODB /Custom/Path to $MIDASSYS,
which is often "$HOME/packages/midas" or "$HOME/git/midas". In this case, the following command will steal the ssh
private key:  "wget http://localhost:8080/%2e%2e/%2e%2e/.ssh/authorized_keys". (this will not work in the google chrome url bar,
as it replaces "%2e%2e" with ".." then normalizes "/.." to "/"). BTW, I do not know all and every way to obfuscate ".." in order
to escape from a file path jail. Maybe I should see what apache httpd people do against escapes from a file path jail.

Most important is to clearly explain which files we serve from which URLs. If we are upfront that we serve all and any files
with file names in the form ("/Custom/Path" + URL), they make have a clue to not set "/Custom/Path" to blank or "/". On our side,
obviously /Custom/Path set to "" should not mean that we serve any and all files with filenames that can be encoded into a URL.

K.O.

P.S. All this only reinforces my opinion that mhttpd should not be exposed directly to the internet (or even worse,
to a university campus network). Safest is to place it behind a password-protected https proxy and hope the password
is not leaked (hello, browser "save password/show password" button!) and is strong enough against
guessing or brute force attack. (hello, password midas/midas!).

K.O.