Question

I’m just looking a big picture idea here; I can google specifics once provided with guidelines.

I want to make a relatively simple file hosting website such as dropbox or skydrive for mainly pedagogical reasons.

Making a multi-user login and registration system with PHP and MySQL is pretty straight forward, but how would I go about managing file directories and permissions for each user?

Answer 1

At its simplest: Store files somewhere in any hierarchy you want in a location that’s not simply publicly accessible through the web server. Store meta information about each file in a database. In said database, store who the owner of the file is. Write a script that allows people to download those files (see readfile), require that users are logged in and that only owners of files can them.