How do you require login on a document download page?

[jtown]

Is there a way to protect files or at least make it more difficult for users to pass on the link to word document downloads without the use of .htacess? I would require that the user be logged in and I would create a proper session, but I'm a bit stuck on a document download page.

Say a user logs in and I create a proper session and I check for this on each page. The on one page there is a list of documents for them to download. Is there any way to protect the path of these documents with the use of .htaccess? Maybe a page that refreshes and asks the user if they want to download the file after?

Thanks!

[netmastan]

i was looking for a similar solution. After searching google.. i wrote this simple code. This code might give you some hint. It's not the good coding. Please note you have to put your files outside root directory or public site.

I want to know if there are any file size restriction on readfile function.
Will it crash shared hosting server? I will have more then 300MB of mpeg file.
I want to embed mpeg file in html file and video source will be like protect.php?file=myvideo.mpg

If anyone can give us more information would be great.

<?php
require_once("mainfile.php");

$path="D:\webserver\Apache\\";
$protect = new Protect($_GET["file"],$path);
if(is_authorised()){
   $protect->downloadfile();
}else{
die("Please login");
}

class Protect{
	var $file;
	var $path;
	function Protect($file,$path){
		$this->file=$file;
		$this->path=$path;

}

function checkFile(){
	if(!empty($this->file) && !eregi("http://",$this->file) && $this->getmimetype($this->file)){
		if(file_exists($this->path.$this->file) && is_readable($this->path.$this->file)){
			return true;
		}else{
			return false;

		}
	}else{

		return false;
	}

}


function showfile(){
	if($this->checkFile()){
		header('Content-type: '.$this->getmimetype());
		header('Content-transfer-encoding: binary');
		header('Content-length: '.filesize($this->path.$this->file));
		readfile($this->path.$this->file);
	}
}

function downloadfile(){
	if($this->checkFile()){
		header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
		header('Content-type: '.$this->getmimetype());
		header('Content-transfer-encoding: binary');
		header('Content-length: '.filesize($this->path.$this->file));
		header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=' . basename($this->path.$this->file));
		readfile($this->path.$this->file);
	}

}

function getmimetype(){
	$file=explode(".",$this->file);
	switch($file[1]){
		case"jpe":
		case"jpg":
		return "image/jpeg";
		break;

		case"mpg":
		return "video/mpeg mpeg mpg mpe";
		break;

		case"ppt":
		return "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint ppt";
		break;

		case"zip":
		return "application/zip zip";
		break;

		case"gif":
		return "image/gif gif";
		break;

		case".doc":
		return "application/msword doc";
		break;

		case"xls":
		return "application/vnd.ms-excel";
		break;

		case"pdf":
		return "application/pdf";
		break;

		case"png":
		return "image/png";
		break;

		case"exe":
		return "application/octet-stream";
		break;

	}

}

}
?>