Make sure URL originates from same server

Question

Maybe I don't know how to phrase my searches properly, but this is what I need to do: Make sure that when a user clicks on my ad, it only comes from one particular site, otherwise returns false, or error.

FILTER_VALIDATE_URL

This only makes sure the URL is valid; I want to make sure it only originates from www.example.com or example.com, etc., but from nowhere else.

you can use the HTTP Referer Header but you cant rely on it, you should understand that http is a stateless protocol — , Aug 17 '13 at 02:04

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:28

1

You can simply use $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] then use PHP's parse_url function and use a condition for your url

ex:

$url = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];

if ( $parts = parse_url($url ) ) {
    $host = $parts[ "host" ];
if($host == 'www.example.com' || $host == 'example.com'){
  //... your action
}

}

reference: Extract Scheme and Host from HTTP_REFERER

edited May 23 '17 at 12:28

Community

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answered Aug 17 '13 at 02:32

Jereme

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just as long as you don't mind that it wont always be correct. – Aug 17 '13 at 02:33
@Dagon what do you mean sir? – Jereme Aug 17 '13 at 02:35
you can never rely on $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], it is browser set, and often stripped – Aug 17 '13 at 02:38
Excuse my ignorance, but if I want it to come from www.example.com, or example.com only, this should work, right? Naked or not. – GreaseJunkie Aug 17 '13 at 02:41
it will work some of the time. more than 50% but less than 100% i wouldn't want to be more specific than that. – Aug 17 '13 at 02:42
Yeah, even PHP documentation says so. as of now I can't think of another way since we're just working on a browser. How about javascript's `document.referrer`? – Jereme Aug 17 '13 at 02:42
Thank you both for your input, btw! – GreaseJunkie Aug 17 '13 at 02:43
@JeremeCausing it is the same referrer part of the document header php\js no difference – Aug 17 '13 at 02:44
welcome, I hope it answers your problem – Jereme Aug 17 '13 at 02:44
Well I guess it's just the limitations in working on a browser. By the way have you tried the code above? just let us know if it worked for you.. :) – Jereme Aug 17 '13 at 02:46
`` Is what I'm trying to do. – GreaseJunkie Aug 17 '13 at 03:32
I'm still trying to figure out how to comment properly with code... – GreaseJunkie Aug 17 '13 at 03:33

Make sure URL originates from same server

1 Answers1