[pcpro17]

Hello. I would like to configure my .htaccess file to protect .jpg and .gif images from being hot-linked. For some reason, it is not working. This is what I have so far:

Options -Indexes
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?correctnesscommentary.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ - [F]

.ohtaccess:

IndexIgnore *

Also, does anyone know how I can alter this file to prevent access to a specific folder (e.g. correctnesscommentary.com/examplefolder)?

Thanks!

[Squashman]

Did you misspell the filename. It should be .htaccess. Otherwise it looks correct.

If you want to prevent access to a folder put an .htaccess file in there and password protect it.
http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess3.shtml

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by pcpro17

Hello. I would like to configure my .htaccess file to protect .jpg and .gif images from being hot-linked. For some reason, it is not working.

I had a similar issue on a server I admin. I use Apache 2.0.59 as the web server and I found I had to specify an "AllowOverride [something]" directive in the virtual host definition of the site I wanted to prevent hot-linking on in order for the .htaccess file to be processed.

So, I would put other directives in your .htaccess file to make sure .htaccess is even being read and processed. There is also a RewriteEngineLog directive you can possibly utilize to get error messages regarding your Rewrite rules. You might need to ask your website hosting service tech support for help with this.

Good luck!

Peace...

[pcpro17]

Thanks for the help folks!

[tomdkat]

What did you end up doing?

Peace...

[pcpro17]

Hi Tom. I eventually got it working, but it took a while:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(.+\.)?mysite\.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^$
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /images/nohotlink.jpe [L]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ - [F]

It turned out that the problem in the code I orignally posted was the exclaimation mars ("!") needed to be removed. Thanks.

[pcpro17]

Okay, so after some additional testing, it does not seem to be working properly. Anyone can hotlink images still.

http://www.correctnesscommentary.com/images/banner.jpg

What is the exclaimation mark ("!") and dollar sign ("$") supposed to do in a .htaccess file?

[tomdkat]

Here is a .htaccess file I use on a site I host and it works fine:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?website.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.website.com/no-hotlink.jpg [R,L]

The only way I could get it to work was to make sure the "AllowOverride" directive was setup to enable actual processing of the .htaccess file. The exclamation points are fine.

Peace...

[pcpro17]

AllowOverride? What's that? :-\

[tomdkat]

Read post #3 above.

Peace...

[pcpro17]

Okay, I finally sent in a request to my hosting support, and the issue now seems to be resolved:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.+\.)?correctnesscommentary\.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ - [F]

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by pcpro17

Okay, I finally sent in a request to my hosting support, and the issue now seems to be resolved:

Great! What did they do? Did they define an "AllowOverride" directive for your site?

Peace...

[pcpro17]

I'm not sure. I just sent them my .htaccess code, and they told me how to fix it.