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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    88

    How-to - Disable Hot-linking Files.

    Hot-linking files such as images and media (mp3, wma etc..) is where another website uses source code to post your media on thier page. This uses your bandwidth and the other site gets credit for this.

    This snippet of code will prevent anyone but your domain to view or access your media. If others are hosting images that are yours they will simply have the big red x.

    There are 4 variants of this code, experiement with them to find the one that works for you.

    To implement this you will need to create a .htaccess file in the stored directory. If your images are in /web/images then you will need to post this .htaccess file in the images directory to prevent hotlinking there.

    Note, only enter the tld of your domain. Such as yourdomain.com instead of www.yourdomain.com..

    Application is:

    cd /web/images
    vi .htaccess

    Paste your desired variant (some may not work with your hosting setup, try until one does).

    Variant 1
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomain.com(/)?.*$ [NC]
    RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|bmp)$ - [F,NC]
    Variant 2
    Options +FollowSymlinks
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomain.com(/)?.*$ [NC]
    RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|bmp)$ - [F,NC]
    Variant 3
    Options +FollowSymlinks
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomain.com(/)?.*$ [NC]
    RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|bmp)$ - [F,NC]
    Variant 4
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomain.com(/)?.*$ [NC]
    RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|bmp)$ - [F,NC]
    If your using an Ensim based server 3.1 or 3.5, 3.7 then you'll need to add ReWriteEngine On to the 1st line of code.

    If you need to block additional file types just add thier extensions to the Rewrite Rule Line.

    Removal:

    Simply delete the .htaccess file in your directory.

    1. rm .htaccess

    Regards,

    Ryan
    Last edited by MjrGaelic; 01-21-2004 at 05:23 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Curently WA, USA
    Posts
    62
    erm... i think that if u have access to Cpanel u can control hotlinking like u can block your files from being hotlinked..

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Dead Lake, Michigan
    Posts
    32
    Do .htaccess files work on Windows servers?
    Cheers,
    Jason Henning

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    88
    To be honest Jason, I really don't know. I have no experience with Windows Servers what so ever..

    Can anyone elese answer that question and/or provide a solution like above for Windows boxes?

    Ryan

    :wq

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Central Scotland
    Posts
    245
    I don't know either but you could use another method which is actually more secure for your whole site, why not protect your source code by using encryption and also use one of those 'no right click' scripts. There are some no right click scripts that can be passed by simply left-clicking and quickly right-clicking after it, so be careful as not to pick a duff script This way all your content is protected. not just your images etc because it stops them right clicking and selecting 'save target as' or viewing your source for the file location.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    San Francisco/Hot Springs
    Posts
    991
    There's actually an apache module which can prevent hotlinking...

    Even better is when you rewrite the hotlink'ed image to something shaming the hotlinker, especially if they're hotlinking copyrighted content.
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  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Posts
    501
    Do you recall the name of the apache module?

  8. #8

    thanks

    its also the info i need, i may give it a try. many thanks.

  9. #9
    mod_rewrite is no longer full prove and I can tell you why..
    I found people are using XML (.xml) to get thourgh mod_rewrite.

    An example is an mpg file with mod_rewrite hotlinking protection. If request is not coming from your web page, apache sends error 302 and attempt to redirect, somehow, since it is .xml, with an embedded Windows Media Player, the client was not redirected to a hotlink page.

    Instead another request was made to the server by the embedded player for the mpg file. At this time there is no refferal information. Then client is able to download and play the mpg file on the stealer web page and therefore stealing your content and bandwidth.

    This http log might better explain what is going on...

    1st request:
    .....mpg HTTP/1.1" 302 312 "http://hotlinker.website/file.xml" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible....

    2nd request:
    .....mpg HTTP/1.1" 206 1462276 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible....

    3rd request:
    .......mpg HTTP/1.1" 200 1398788 "-" "Windows-Media-Player/9.00.00.2980"


    If anyone knows a method how i can prevent this type if hotlinking please shine some clue.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Posts
    3
    Ive been looking for a good one for awhile. thanks!

  11. #11
    Anything for Windows?

  12. #12
    It's really easy with CPanel. Cpanel automaticaly does it for you.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Earth
    Posts
    72
    Anything for Windows?
    Plesk in Windows has the option for hotlinking.

    Use Plesk CP >> Domains >> Domainname >> Hosting >> Click Hotlink Protection and enable it.

  14. #14
    you can do it automatically thru any cpanel system or editing the htaccess yourself

  15. #15
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    United States
    Posts
    1
    Finally I found this good article that help me a lot to disable Hot-linking Files. I want now installing window vista on my computer so let me know do .htaccess files work on window vista?

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Singapore
    Posts
    52
    Quote Originally Posted by steaveandrew807 View Post
    Finally I found this good article that help me a lot to disable Hot-linking Files. I want now installing window vista on my computer so let me know do .htaccess files work on window vista?
    i know windows XP doesn't support .htaccess files because of the naming convention.

    The content inside is definitely readable by Apache though, and Apache can definitely be run on Windows.

    So even if .htaccess files can't be read, you can reconfigure Apache by editing your Apache httpd.conf file so that maybe htaccess.txt are read instead of .htaccess. Just look for this line:

    AccessFileName .htaccess

    And change it to this line:

    AccessFileName htaccess.txt

    Hope that helps
    John Lee
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  17. #17
    Thankyou so much for this!!

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    New York, USA
    Posts
    17
    Sorry for digging this up, but I can't seem to get this to work.

    Does windows definitely accept htaccess files if they are named htaccess.text, because I tried that.

    Thanks
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