Posted by diablo on 06/09/05 00:58

hi

i think this is a good idea - thanks for the help

D

"Mitja" <nun@example.com> wrote in message news:op.sr19wakwdob4us@ibis...
> On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 17:57:29 +0200, Roy Schestowitz
> <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> wrote:
>
> > Mitja wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 17:18:12 +0200, Roy Schestowitz
> >> <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Martin Magnusson wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> diablo wrote:
> >>>>> I want to offer a download to people for a certain amount of time -
> >>>>> after the link expires.
> >>>>
> >>>> I don't believe that's possible using only HTML. You would have to
> >>>> remove the file manually or have a server-side script to automate it.
> >>>
> >>> Set up a cron job for the day of expiry, say:
> >>> 20 22 24 * * cp ~/index2.html ~/index.html; rm ~/index2.html
> >>
> >> Which is still a server side script, although admittedly not one that
> >> interacts with the server. And using cron for this kind of job is at
> >> best
> >> not overly elegant, either...
> >>
> >> I'd go for a database (can ba plain-textfile based one) with
> >> valid/active "passwords".
> >
> > That's still quite laborious. How about changing that cron job to a
> > simple chmod command.
>
> Hmm.... can't help, still think my way is cleaner, easier to automate and
> therefore less prone to errors - not to mention /less/ laborious in the
> long run. No manual messing with cron.tab. Just to show you such a script
> is not too complicated, here's an example in python (not tested, very
> probably has some errors):
>
> import string
> import random
> import time
> import sys
>
> def makeLink():
> "returns the hash from which to create the link of form
> getBook.py?hash=..."
> hash = ''.join([random.choice(string.ascii_uppercase) for i in
> range(32)]);
> f = open('hash.db','a')
> f.write(hash+' '+`time.time()`)
> f.close()
> return hash
>
> def get(hash):
> "when the script is called with an actual hash, call this func to check
> if it's a valid one"
> db = dict([line.split() for line in open('hash.db')])
> try:
> assert time.time()-db[hash] < 3600*24*7
> sys.out.write('content-type:
> application/x-pdf\n\n'+open('theBook.pdf').read())
> except KeyError, AssertionError:
> sys.out.write('content-type: text/plain\n\nInvalid or expired hash.')
>
> Now for a real, running script of course you'd want to fancy it up a bit,
> but the above few lines generally cover all of idea.

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