Question

This could be a kind of strange question. I have a php file in a public web site where I have access to the server. For the moment we do not need to set Cron job for this file execution. However I need to limit the execution of this file only via localhost. I don’t have any precise idea about the way should I do this. Is there any way to detect whether the request is localhost or not? I mean with PHP. Or should I need to handle this via security setting or firewall of the server?

Answer 1

I’m assuming you mean you want to be able to execute the script only from the server, and not via the web from another host. You have two options:

Option 1

move it out of the public_html folder. There is no reason you should not take this option, unless there is something preventing you from doing so. In that case,

Option 2:

Wrap the entire code in the following if statement

if (php_sapi_name() == 'cli')
{
   //your code
}

Alternatively,

if (php_sapi_name() != 'cli')
   die();

//your code

This ensures your script will only run if invoked from the command line, and not via the web.