nixCraft Linux Sys Admin Blog

Lighttpd mod_rewrite Hotlink Protection To Display Image Message

Posted: 12 Jun 2008 11:19 AM CDT

Many of our regular readers like to know more about lighttpd hotlink protection using mod_rewrite. Lighttpd can use HTTP referer to detect hotlink and can be configured to partially protect hosted media from inline linking, usually by not serving the media or by serving a different file.

Lighttpd anti hotlinking configuration - redirect to another media

Open lighttpd.conf configuration file:
# vi /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
Append following directive to redirect to a default picture called /hotlink.png:

$HTTP["referer"] =~ ".*BADDOMAIN\.com.*|.*IMAGESUCKERDOMAIN\.com.*|.*blogspot\.com.*" {   url.rewrite = ("(?i)(/.*\.(jpe?g|png))$" => "/hotlink.png" ) }

So if anyone from *.blogspot.com linked www.cyberciti.biz/image.png it will be replaced with www.cyberciti.biz/hotlink.png. I've written small script to detect excessive hotlink from log file and ban all those domains. Most types of electronic media can be redirected this way, including video files, music files, and animations etc.

Related: Apache web server user can stop lechers using mod_rewrite / .htaccess rules.

Download of the day: Opera Browser Software 9.50

Posted: 12 Jun 2008 10:57 AM CDT

Opera browser software version 9.50 has been released and available for download. From the release note:

We've made the fastest browser in the world even faster with superior support for Web standards. Opera 9.5 is quicker to start, faster at loading Web pages and better at running your favorite Web applications.

* More than 2x faster than Opera 9.2 in rendering JavaScript and HTML
* Faster handling of third party plug-ins
* Much faster start up time
* Superior support for Web standards

Personally, I'm more interested in Opera Dragonfly upcoming developer tool, which makes developing using Opera easier than ever, both on your computer and mobile phone.. It includes:

Debug javaScript
Inspect CSS and the DOM
View any errors and much more.

See complete feature list here online:

Download Opera 9.50

Visit Download Opera 9.50

DNS Name Resolution

Posted: 12 Jun 2008 12:13 PM CDT

Can you explain DNS name resolution concept? Why I need to set DNS resolution for my Windows or Linux server? How do I setup DNS name resolution under Linux / UNIX server system?

Answer to "DNS Name Resolution"