I've been having problems with direct-linkers, and I was informed that I could actually protect my images via the mod_rewrite module of the apache server. I created a .htaccess file as was specified by http://faq.solutionscripts.com/misc/hot_linking.html but I ended up locking up the images from my own visitors as well. Can anyone help me? Thanks!

If you want others to help, you'll need to give more information than that. Perhaps you can start by posting your .htaccess file...

I just did the same thing at my site a couple of days ago, and when I first tried it, the same thing happened. In my case it was easy to fix, though. It turned out that when I cut and pasted the text into .htaccess, I stupidly forgot to change the "your_domain" part to my own domain. So you may want to double check that you did that everyplace. Also, I beleive I read that a carriage return is required after every line, so you might want to check that the last line has a carriage return after it.

If all of that checks out, I agree with the previous poster, you'd have to post the text of your .htaccess file here before we'd have a chance of figuring it out.

- Dennis D.

Here's the text:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://animetric.com:80/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.animetric.com:80/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|GIF|jpg|JPG)$ - [F]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong and my host is unable to help me.

I'm not very experienced with this, but according to the guides, you should list every possible URL the visitor may access it at.

Maybe if you add

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://animetric.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.animetric.com/.*$ [NC]

as well it might help.

Try leaving out the two :80s. There shouldn't be a need for those.

This site has a script that will create the code for you.

http://www.htmlbasix.com/disablehotlinking.shtml

actually they have a lot of good ones.

When I did this I couldnt put the .htaccess in the public_html dir I have to make a public_html/images and put all my images and the .htaccess in that dir.

why not just install a anti-leech script ? if you want one let me know..

if you use cpanel, it now has a section in the control panel to turn on/off HotLinking so people cannot steal your images/bandwidth.

James

Originally posted by Wavmeister
This site has a script that will create the code for you.

http://www.htmlbasix.com/disablehotlinking.shtml

actually they have a lot of good ones.


Testing the automatically generated .htaccess file...is anyone able to see the picture?

http://www.hq4.com/more/George%20Bush.jpg

Originally posted by wwww



Testing the automatically generated .htaccess file...is anyone able to see the picture?

http://www.hq4.com/more/George%20Bush.jpg
nope
clicking on it dun work
typing it manualy into my browser worked

amazing :D

it still works on my computer, but that's probably because the pic is in my browser cache...

I originally did it without the :80 and the page became a 500 error page.

My host ecommercediscovery just informed me that they've fixed my .htaccess problem and the images can't be hot-linked anymore.

The problem is, I tried viewing my own domain http://www.animetric.com and I got broken images. I tried again and they appeared, and then again broken. Could you guys try viewing the domain to see if you get broken images on the main page? The other pages seem to work properly. Thanks, I appreciate it.

Originally posted by yuffie123
My host ecommercediscovery just informed me that they've fixed my .htaccess problem and the images can't be hot-linked anymore.

The problem is, I tried viewing my own domain http://www.animetric.com and I got broken images. I tried again and they appeared, and then again broken. Could you guys try viewing the domain to see if you get broken images on the main page? The other pages seem to work properly. Thanks, I appreciate it.

Your pics look fine to me

Originally posted by wwww
Testing the automatically generated .htaccess file...is anyone able to see the picture?

http://www.hq4.com/more/George%20Bush.jpg

404

Originally posted by yuffie123
I originally did it without the :80 and the page became a 500 error page. Are you sure you CHMOD the file properly? I think you need to set it at 755 for it to work properly.

You might also want to check that you uploaded it in ASCII properly.

Internal server 500 error - Upload your .htaccess in ASCII

Also helps if your host sets the default to ASCII within Apache, still allows images etc to upload in Binary but stops the frequent ASCII problem.

Hope that helps.

i just tried AND went to your site normally, and ALL of the images were broken.


which happened to me when i tried disabling hotlinking.

Works fine for me (the animetric site, that is).

Works like a champ for me too. Images all show up.