Protecting Against Download Managers.

[miken2006]

Hi I am running a website which is a mirror for a popular file and it gets reasonably heavy traffic. Its runs on a VPS account but a GOOD VPS account :)

It seems that download managers are a problem, trying to make multiple connection at once (sometimes way too many). When the downloads are heavy, this floods the server. I haven't yet found any good advice through google about how to handle them.

I could write a PHP script which generates a unique code on the downloads page and then only allows that code to be used once after clicking on the download link. If the code is invalid, it could output nothing. I also know I can also check the http referer but I believe many download managers will fake this.

I have tried to configure apache and seem to have improved performance but I am looking for general ideas. Perhaps the apache mod "bandwidth" might be useful. I don't want to cap download speed just control the maximum number of concurrent connections per IP.

Perhaps using a PHP script is NOT the ideal solution as obviously processing the script each time might waste server resources.

Anyone offering of advice related to this matter is appeciated.

[sashi]

Hi I am running a website which is a mirror for a popular file and it gets reasonably heavy traffic. Its runs on a VPS account but a GOOD VPS account :)

It seems that download managers are a problem, trying to make multiple connection at once (sometimes way too many). When the downloads are heavy, this floods the server. I haven't yet found any good advice through google about how to handle them.

I could write a PHP script which generates a unique code on the downloads page and then only allows that code to be used once after clicking on the download link. If the code is invalid, it could output nothing. I also know I can also check the http referer but I believe many download managers will fake this.

I have tried to configure apache and seem to have improved performance but I am looking for general ideas. Perhaps the apache mod "bandwidth" might be useful. I don't want to cap download speed just control the maximum number of concurrent connections per IP.

Perhaps using a PHP script is NOT the ideal solution as obviously processing the script each time might waste server resources.

Anyone offering of advice related to this matter is appeciated.

Hi there,

A good way to handle this matter is at port level. You need to identify port commonly used by these download managers. If you are on Linux box you can make use of the iptables firewall rules to in DROP / REJECT connection on particular port, hope it helps. Good luck & Take care.