Question

I see on many download servers virtual links created to specific IP for a specific amount of time.

I want to know if this is done by PHP or .htaccess, and how?

Thanks.

Answer 1

.htaccess is just a means to set configuration directives for some popular webservers on a per directory basis.

You need programming at some point. PHP is one option, there are many others, my preference would be Perl.

The solution basically boils down to:

1. Generate a code in response that whatever condition you like being met
2. Store it somewhere (e.g. a database) with the ip address, creation time and what it is associated with
3. Look it up when a URL that uses that code is hit, then respond with a Forbidden of the associated content
4. Have a periodic clean up script to delete old entries and keep the database small