Hotlink exceptions and .htaccess?

fifeclub posted this at 19:13 — 7th March 2006.

Joined: Feb 2001

I used cPanel to automatically hotlink protect against my images being hotlinked on other domains. But I have some "link to me buttons" that I make available to anybody who wants to add them to their blogs and/or webpages. I know of a few people who actually use these graphic buttons so I added their domains to the hotlink exceptions list, but that's not a valid longterm solution.

I must admit now that I really have no idea what the magical .htaccess file actually does, but I was told that this is where my hotlink permissions were set via cPanel. Long story short, how do I prevent hotlinking of my images EXCEPT for the one folder I specify as okay?

Thanks.

Busy posted this at 21:19 — 7th March 2006.

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

place the hotlink .htaccess file in the root folder (will stop from whole domain) but in the folder you want people to link from add a .htaccess file with permissions to all or blank.

I think cpanel places a .htaccess file in every folder

timjpriebe posted this at 13:39 — 8th March 2006.

He has: 2,667 posts

Joined: Dec 2004

You might also check out this link, the .htaccess cheatsheet:

http://thejackol.com/htaccess-cheatsheet

I used it just last night on a project.

fifeclub posted this at 03:56 — 10th March 2006.

He has: 688 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

Thanks y'all. I got it working the way I needed. I like to come back and tell people how my problem was fixed, incase it may help others with the same issue.

In order to UN-hotlink a specific directory, I just created an .htaccess file in that directory with the following code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^.*$ -

'
That's all.