You need to store your PDFs outside the web tree and then access and
distribute them through a script that does the user authentication ...
in pseudo-code that would look like this:

Check Authentication
        If !Auth ... send to login
Check for proper file request (name/id/whatever)
        If !Proper ... send error
If AllOK
        Open file requested
        Send appropriate headers for filetype
        Send appropriate headers for filename/inline/attachment
        Send Data
        Close file
Script End

Hank

On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 03:54:59PM -0400, Miles Thompson wrote:
> Sebastian,
> 
> I believe I have to do what you do, but from your cryptic msg I've not been 
> able to figure it out.
> 
> We have a subscription site, and if a subscriber wants a PDF, the link 
> which requests it checks for a session cookie. If it's not set the user is 
> directed to a logon script which checks username/password against a 
> database and sets the session cookie if everything is OK. It automatically 
> redirects to the calling script, and because the session id is now present 
> the PDF can be accessed.
> 
> To my horror, I discovered on Friday that if I just type in the URL with 
> the name of the PDF it's delivered with no checking at all. I have to move 
> them to a safe place, either outside the web tree or to a directory 
> protected by htaccess. This is where I'm stuck.
> 
> If I use .htaccess, I don't want to maintain a separate .htaccess file in 
> addition to the subscriber table in the database. Can I set have my logon 
> script set an Apache variable that will give access to the protected 
> directory which store the PDf's?
> 
> Or do they have to be passed? If so how?
> 
> Would that mean that I'd need only one or a few username/password pairs in 
> htaccess?
> or
> Is htaccess (or Apache's security) somehow satisfied by setting the 
> variables?
> 
> Regards - Miles Thompson
> 
> At 01:19 PM 10/19/2001 +0200, you wrote:
> >Hi George
> >
> >I had the same problem a while ago.
> >The only solution i found was to change the link to :
> >www.blabla.com/pdffile/test.pdf
> >test.pdf does not exist, but
> >in /pdffile/ there is a .htaccess which redirects the 404 to the php
> >script that reads/generates the pdfs. And for my purpose checks if user
> >is
> >authorized to get these files.
> >
> >sebastian
> <George's part is snipped, as it doesn't matter to me if the filename is 
> preserved.>
> 
> 
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