Requiring specific referer for access

Anon

I'm trying to restrict access to a directory based on the http referrer. Is there a way to do this with .htaccess. Couldn't find anything clear in the docs. Just how to restrict by IP or domain. My need is to make sure that a set of graphics is only requested by referral from my domain. I've got a LOT of copyright infringement and bandwidth theft going on. Is there a way to do this, or does anyone have a better idea.

I've thought about making the graphics only accessible via PHP script, but it would be simpler to do it at the webserver level.

Anon

$HTTP_HOST should get the redirected server name - you could check this against your domain name...

Anon

$HTTP_HOST (which should be $SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]) will return the server name. Use $SERVER["HTTP_REFERER"] (or $HTTP_REFERER) and extract the domain name and compare it with your domain name. Don't forget that you can have www.mydomain.com and mydomain.com to get you at the same place...

Anon

Yes, but how do I make Apache restrict based on this? I want to keep the graphics in the web tree, but have apache restrict access to the directory they live in so that only folks with the proper referer will get the graphics. That way other folks can't just link to my graphics from other sites (Which is happening a LOT right now).