Beyond frustrated - need help

[lbb87]

I need some help before my head explodes.

I need to hide the URL of just 1 link on my website. The reason I need to hide it is because people keep linking to it and stealing the file, etc. I went to various websites and checked out some PHP scripts but I can't find any that will work. I need something that is free and is for Windows. The last couple scripts I tried wouldn't work because the webspace provider has apparently disabled the realpath function. I've spent many, many hours searching the web for an alternative and am having nothing but trouble finding anything useful.

Since the realpath function is disabled, is there anything else (other scripts/codes) that will work? Or should I just find another host?

[laserlight]

What is the file? An image?
What webserver do you use?

[lbb87]

The file is a ZIP file containing several documents and a few pictures. Sadly enough I'm using a Tripod (uk) free account (for now). I don't really know too much about their server. The only thing I know is that uses PHP 4.3 and I suspect that it's running Windows because the Unix scripts wouldn't work.

[ZibingsCoder]

Well, this is a fairly "easy" thing to do, provided you know your HTTP Headers.

If you put the file in a page such as download.php, and require people to log in before they can use download.php, that would do what you seem to want. Don't have any time to write it atm, but I know there is some information on file sending via PHP...

But here's the simplest Header to send (this is from that page, seriously suggest reading it, there are some great user notes on this):

header ( "Content-type: application/zip" );

header ( "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='downloadable.zip'" );

readfile ( 'downloadable.zip' );

There's also some great notes at this[/code] page on sending files via PHP and HTTP headers.

Read up on them, and if you need help on creating a user login system, do a [url=http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/search.php?s=]search[/code] for it on these boards.

[drawmack]

You'll also want to check the $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] value and make sure they clicked the link from your site. If they did then you can give them the file if not then you can display a page that says whatever you want it to.

[lbb87]

Thanks for the help. I have another question though.

I found a script that I tried prior to my first post and for some reason I can't get it to work. I was wondering if someone might be able to tell me why it won't work.

When I click the link to the file, the save box comes up, then the page goes blank and the page URL goes from http://home/username/subdirectory/data/download.php to http://home/username/subdirectory/data/download.php?0 but the file downloads fine.
The person who created the script doesn't have this problem because I checked out a demo on his/her website. Unfortunately, I can't seem to contact the person to ask them about it. Anyone hae any ideas on what the problem might be?

This is an example of the script I'm using.

<?

$files=array( 'test.zip');
$filenames=array( 'This is a Test.zip');
$additional_info=array( 'This is a test file : unknown bytes');
$url= "/home/username/subdirectory/data/";
/ When the files are on another server, use the
whole address (http://www.server.com/dir/) in stead of /home/username... /

$referer=ereg_replace( "\?.", "",$HTTP_REFERER);
$thisfile= "http://$HTTP_HOST$PHP_SELF";

if ($referer!=$thisfile){
echo "<center><big>Homepage: <a href=\"http://home/username/subdirectory/data\">[url]http://home/username/subdirectory/data[/url]</big><br><hr><br><br></center>";
for ($i=0;$i<count($files);$i++)
echo "<P><A HREF=\"$PHP_SELF?$i\">",$filenames[$i], "</A> $additional_info[$i]\n";
}
else {
$i=$QUERY_STRING;
$total=$url . $files[$i];
Header ( "Content-Type: application/zip");
Header ( "Content-Length: ".filesize($total));
Header( "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$test.zip");
readfile($total);
}
?>