testing please

[pinbrook]

will a few of you go to www.surf-wax.co.uk/index.htm

someone has reported that they get a "this image has been stolen" graphic message on this page .

I've added htaccess to stop hotlinking but there are no images on the page which are hotlinked from other sources, thus I seem to have shot myself in the foot.

Here is the code in my htaccess

removed as it does not work in all cases

[george]

Looks okay from where I'm perched J.

[RuralWeb]

Looks ok to me as well.

[Duncan Rounding]

ditto down my way.

[wjcampbe]

No problem encountered here - I 'stole' three images to see if the message appeared on the 'stolen' images - it did not.

[jont]

Jo - no problems view images on your site - also would check your .htaccess as I managed to hotlink to the what can only be described as the "green slug" image on your homepage

[pinbrook]

Green Slug?

that is the current bestselling surfing DVD! you're such a pleb!

is your hotlinking visible somewhere for me to see, as you should see my ginourmous jpg image instead

[jont]

that is the current bestselling surfing DVD! you're such a pleb!

I am more of a cross-stitch needlepoint DVD fan myself

The re-write is working ..... the browser was showing from the cache .... a purge showed the ginourmous.jpg in its glory

[fleetwood]

WARNING!!!
I have just tried a similar mod to Jo on my .htaccess file, and managed to lock myself and everyone else out of the site!!!!
After FTPing my modded .htaccess, the site denied me any further access, even to the extent of not allowing me to overwrite the new file with the old one.

Scary half hour is over, as eventually got back in, and deleted the new .htacess, which then permitted me to upload the old one back.

Lesson 1 to self - "don't faff about with stuff you don't fully understand, in the middle of a busy trading day!"

OK, now that panic is over, maybe I can get a clue to where I went wrong.

The existing .htaccess file looks like this:


# -FrontPage-

IndexIgnore .htaccess */.??* *~ *# */HEADER* */README* */_vti*

<Limit GET POST>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
</Limit>
<Limit PUT DELETE>
order deny,allow
deny from all
</Limit>
AuthName www.megacitycomics.co.uk
AuthUserFile /data/web/<text removed by me just in case its sensitive data>
AuthGroupFile /data/web/<text removed by me just in case its sensitive data>



and I tried to add hotlink image swapping to the top of the file like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(.+\.)?myspace\.com/ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(.+\.)?blogspot\.com/ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(.+\.)?livejournal\.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /hotlink.jpe [L]
# -FrontPage-

IndexIgnore .htaccess */.??* *~ *# */HEADER* */README* */_vti*

<Limit GET POST>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
</Limit>
<Limit PUT DELETE>
order deny,allow
deny from all
</Limit>
AuthName www.megacitycomics.co.uk
AuthUserFile /data/web/<text removed by me just in case its sensitive data>
AuthGroupFile /data/web/<text removed by me just in case its sensitive data>

I did my mods in Wordpad, rather than notepad, so I could see what I was doing (the original file in notepad wsa just one long line), so maybe wordpad added formatting that wasn't liked. File was saved as ".htaccess", which seemed OK.

Any suggestions as to where I went wrong, and should the new bits go at the top, before the # Frontpage line, or below it, or where...?

Any idea what all the stuff between # -FrontPage-... & ...</Limit> actually does? I assume the last couple of lines (Auth...) are password protection.

thanks

Martin

[pinbrook]

WARNING!!!
I have just tried a similar mod to Jo on my .htaccess file, and managed to lock myself and everyone else out of the site!!!!

Being able to use mod rewrite is very much hosting dependant. Sorry I didn't indicate this.

You should check with your host before joining Martin in his scary half hour - maybe there should be a comic strip called "Martin's Scary 30 mins"

[fleetwood]

being able to use mod rewrite is very much hosting dependant.

Can you elaborate please Jo?

1) What is 'mod rewrite'?
2) Would I normally be able to rewrite my .htaccess off my own back, on a shared server? (The .htaccess file reproduced was already in my root folder - I copied it back to my desktop, then added the extra lines, and then copied it back to the server).
3) What does it all mean? (big question - please do not answer with a quote from Douglas Adams )

Martin

[pinbrook]

Originally Posted by pinbrook
being able to use mod rewrite is very much hosting dependant.

Some hosts will allow you to use htaccess and/or mod rewrite, some won't. You have found to your cost that your host doesn't support it (try contacting them to hear their official view). It seems you can use htaccess, but maybe not mod rewrite commands

Mod Rewrite is a term used to describe the type of commands I used to prevent hotlinking.

There is more info here

http://altlab.com/htaccess_tutorial.html

(2nd edit to this post) Looking at your your post and the htaccess it could be htaccess placed there by Frontpage which is a compleltey different issue. I can't help with Frontpage as I simply don't use it.

additionally (3rd edit to this post) you need to put your domain in place of surf-wax in the example, not the sites you are preventing (myspace etc)

[fleetwood]

you need to put your domain in place of surf-wax in the example, not the sites you are preventing (myspace etc)

I had already visited the altlabs site, which is where I obtained my code from.
It is actually the second piece of sample code that I had used in my file, that is shown on their advice page, which dosen't include 'mydomain'.

Whilst I am not up to speed with .htaccess, I am guessing that your version (with its '!') means prevent access by anything BUT mydomain, whereas the other version means specially prevent 'myspace', 'blogspot' etc.

Happy to be corrected.

I don't use FP either. I assume that line in the file is a legacy from when I first took the space, and I opted to allow FP extensions ('twas b4 I had Actinic).

Martin (falling over a lot, but learning... )

[pinbrook]

Whilst I am not up to speed with .htaccess, I am guessing that your version (with its '!') means prevent access by anything BUT mydomain, whereas the other version means specially prevent 'myspace', 'blogspot' etc.

you may well be correct, I didn't stop for long enough to investigate, I have had people use my images as avatars in forums etc which is why I prevent all hotlinking rather than defined sites.

I feel your next step is to find out your hosts position, before taking this further. At least then you will know if it is your code at fault or simply you host preventing the code

[fleetwood]

Well the Mods took affect today, so I'm guessing that my hosts (Claranet) activated Mod Rewrites on my space in response to an email to them.

Maybe they have them off by default to cut down server activity, and just switch them on if you ask.

I shall be monitoring the logs closely over the next few days, as I am intrigued to see just what effect this has on my bandwidth usage.

Martin