Linklocker Free (encrypt download links)

Thanks again Brad for all your support and work!

Things aren’t working for everybody but I’m still using your module for another part of the site.

For the mp3, I just found out I can hide the directory in the AS file of the player. It’s not as good but it’s an alternative solution 😊

Vincent

Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Thanks for this module!

One question, though. My current project doesn’t really require protection of the link or anything. I just want an easy way for people to download instead of play (I’m giving them a choice for either one).

Is there a way to set the link so it never expires? If I enter 0 as the expire time, will that do it?

Fitzage, I didn’t use the expire variable and the link doesn’t seem to expire that way (at least that’s what I think!)

Vincent

It says that it defaults to 5 minutes. I noticed this when I refreshed the page that originates my download, and then went to make coffee. I came back and clicked a link and it wouldn’t work because it had expired. At least that’s what I think happened. Another refresh and it was fine again.

I’m not sure if I’m correct on this one or not but I thought I seemed to remember that if you set expires=”0” then it would automatically set it to 5 minutes for you instead. I could be wrong on that though. Should be easy enough to test though just create a link with expires=”0” in it and then don’t refresh the page for at least 5 minutes and 1 second 😉 okay a little more just to be sure, and then see if the link still works.

Best wishes,

Mark

Yes, that’s correct behavior. By default it creates a link that will expire in five minutes. That’s to prevent someone from posting the link for general consumption - that link would no longer work. However, if you refresh the page that creates the link it will create a new link. In order to prevent this natural behavior, you would want to add a check before creating the link, perhaps to see how long ago the user was approved for the download. Based on this info, you could avoid creating a link altogether if it was more than a day, a week, whatever.

OK, thanks. I think I’ll just set it for a longer period of time than they’re likely to be looking at the static page.

In order to prevent this natural behavior, you would want to add a check before creating the link, perhaps to see how long ago the user was approved for the download. Based on this info, you could avoid creating a link altogether if it was more than a day, a week, whatever.

Okay Brad I’m either very tired or missed that tutorial somewhere 😉

How would you go about doing this kind of thing? Would be great for when you offer downloads in a secure area but want to only let them download for say 24 hours and then that’s it.

Would be great to know how to do that if you have the time?

Thanks again for such a great module that many people must be finding really useful in here.

Best wishes,

Mark

I’ll try to find the time to post a tutorial on how to do this, or write a module to automate it - just a matter of finding the time and that’s in short supply lately.

For myself, I’ve simply created a script that emails encrypted links to the user once IPN is received from Paypal - saves me the trouble of them having to be members of the site to make a purchase - but they can’t go view download links on the site yet, as I’m not storing the links in the DB. This way, if they need something more, they can just email me.

Anyways, will try to find the time in the near future to further explain. I’m debating writing a “pro” version of this module that will do additional things like tying into Paypal & emailing links & such.

Hi Brad,

If you do get the time to explain about checking the links then that would be great, even if just a mash-up of an idea and I might be able to figure something out myself and then let everyone know how to go about doing this so that can save you some time.

Either way would be great to know how to do this, thanks.

A Pro versions also sounds really really good too. 😉

Best wishes,

Mark

Getting an error when clicking links generated by Linklocker:

“Disallowed Key Characters”

The generated URL is:

http://chasethegoose.com/?ACT=58&url=1&linklocker=MTIxNjMx5i6MTI0OQ==TdaZNjguNDgZvLuMTkzLjQlB60ZMQ==ZaYExHR0cDomIcKTzQ3OyYjN7AhDc 7Y2hhc58V2V0aGVnb26N29zZS5jbXA120mIzQ3OvK72ZpbGVzJ2RPiM0Nzt3ak06WxkLWdvb4133NlLWNoYsHkXNlL XNhbQ.3XBsZS5wZglfGY=ZMA==8H8ZZeAR

The URL that comes up when I click that within the 5-minute timeframe is:

http://chasethegoose.com/K���I�� �

Obviously, “%” shouldn’t be in there. But I don’t know why it’s doing that. In the tab in Firefox the URL has even funkier characters.

My setup:

<ul id="file-list">
        <li><a href="http://{exp:linklocker">Download Sample Chapter</a></li>
        <li><a href="http://{exp:linklocker">10 Steps to Setting Life Goals</a></li>
</ul>

EDIT: Sorry, the url doesn’t show. The forum is stripping it for some reason. Just know that I have an absolute path to a file there.

Um, well, those FFFD blocks are weird. Does % and a number create an entity of some sort?

Hey David,

Thanks for using my module. First, you can omit the “expires” attribute if you are setting for 5 minutes as that is the default. Next, the url needs to be set to a URL, and not a path. Change it to a web accessible URL such as http://chasethegoose.com/myhiddenfiles/somefile.zip and see if that helps.

Brad: Apologies. I said “absolute path” when what I meant was a full, non-relative link as indicated is necessary in the documentation. Removing the expires option did not help.