Question

Is there a way to be able to send a link through an email that includes a url parameter that verifies the link was sent by the server, and verifies that the link was clicked with a certain period of time after the token was generated?

Answer 1

You can do the following procedure:

1. generate a random, unique key, for each request from the user (or for each user you want to send the access to your server)
2. save the key, the email (or login) of the user, the time the token was generated;
3. send the key to the user, so he access your server throght a link

when the user access your server, you:

1. Verify if that link was used previously (if you want your link to be a one-time access only possibility)
2. verify when the token was generated and calculte if it’s within the allowed time period (if it hasn’t expired)
3. allow the user to access – do whatever you want
4. mark the token as used, if you want it to be used once.