Where download files should be placed in Codeigniter?

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
Where should I place my downloads files?

These should not be accessible to public.
But should be accessible to registered users.

My directory structure is as follows.

-application
-system
-downloads
--abc.7z
-index.php

As it can be seen that downloads are directly accessible to user through following.

Code:

127.0.0.1/CI/downloads/abc.7z

but to make it restricted I added .htaccess with following directive

Code:

Deny from all

Its protected from public access now but I cannot access it from views which I was doing earlier as mentioned below.

Code:

<a href="&lt;?php echo base_url().'/downloads/abc.7z' ?&gt;">click here to download</a>

[eluser]noideawhattotypehere[/eluser]
You could go with http authentication:
http://php.net/manual/en/features.http-auth.php

[eluser]InsiteFX[/eluser]
Cannot access CMOD 600

Register user CMOD 644