A Simple Method To Restrict Access To Paid Customers.

You will run into major problems with this method when you get a customer who is on dial up or on a broadband connection that doesn't use a static ip address.

In this case you will have to constantly update your htaccess file to include the new ip addresses of existing customers since their ip address will change on a regular basis, or even every few minutes if they are on dial up.

You would be much better off just investing in a membership script that will only allow logged in customers to see your content.

I know people want to go the cheapest route but sometimes your shooting yourself in the foot by not investing in proper delivery platforms from the start.

Edit: By the way, there are countless scripts on the market that do work on the htaccess method, and at least one membership script I know of "used" to use this method before they figured out it's more trouble than it's worth.

Actually, it is a very bad piece of information to be publicly disseminated.

As Johnny explained it above - it creates more problems than it solves. No good.

Just an example: imagine I am your customer but I am traveling all the time and connecting to your site from different parts of the world... This "system" of yours would never let me log in, which would make me a very angry customer. And asking for refund!

I use DLGuard now plus wishlist for my members.

I also use a verizon wireless card when I travel so I understand the ip change.

I'm looking to limit access to the actual folder or files and ideally the whole domain. I only want members to access the private files through the actual membership domain.

Is it possible the .htaccess can be edited to where the domain can only be accessed from the domain where the members have access. In other words if you are a member of xyz.com and the private member page for downloads is xyz.com/member, is it possible to limit access to domain abc.com from only xyz.com?

If you are a member of zyx.com, I want to limit the access to all the member folders to the links on the member page only. I do not want it available for anyone to access abc.com/anything by going direct to the domain.

Is this confusing or is what I am attempting just not possible?

For example, if I have a video tutorial that members can access from the private member page on one domain, I want to avoid those who can search out the actual page or folder where the files are located.

Looking for advice here ...

The best way to do what your wanting is to use a script such as Simple Member Pro which will give you a protected link which can only be used by members who are logged into the membes area. They can share the links all they want because if anyone uses the direct link they get a login screen instead of being taken to the download.

Why play around with htaccess and other methods manually when there are so many scripts on the market now that do a much better job than what you are trying to do, and have the added bonus of being very scaleable and can grow with your site insted of limiting it.

Just use DLGuard....add this to the top of any page you need to protect (you'll need to modify the paths as needed):
<?php
$pathToDLG = "../../dlg/";
$dlgMemberGroup = "1,2,3"; //Only these membership groups have access to this page
include ($pathToDLG."members/dlgmembers.php");
?>

If you need additional help, just submit a help ticket to Sam at DLGuard. If it requires him to work on your site, he'll charge you something very reasonable.