IP Address Selection in Admin ( I'm Confused )

[FZee]

My admin panel says


Allow download from
1. Exact downloader IP
2. 111.222.333.***
3.111.222.***.***
4.All IPs

Right now i use ALL IP's ....
My server is configured for "direct-links" for all accounts ( even premium )...

// What will happen if i select "Exact downloader IP" ?
// do dynamic IP's get denied ?

// Also if i select "Exact downloader IP" will it impact the "direct-links" ? ... I want to stop these people abusing my server because the 100MPS port is always MAX and the site becomes slow ....

// & i cannot see which account is cheating for points ( i have no points mod yet )

Sorry for all question but i hope to get a clear answer for all of them

Thank you

[dotceo]

When a download link is generated, it gives you a period of time that, that link will be available for downloading... Usually it's 8 hours... When you have ALL IP's... I can send you the link and you can download it... Jim can download from the same link, and so can Bob...

But if you select EXACT... that means that ONLY the IP address that generated the link can download that link... So Jim and Bob wouldn't not be able to download the link the generator (user) generated.

And in between... just use your subnetting skills and you'll know how to use it.

I hope this was clear enough and I hope it helps.

[FZee]

DotCeo , thank you very much . This makes a lot of sense.

If i select "EXACT DOWNLOADER IP" , how come "a very few" people start to complain of IP errors or they just simply cannot download ?

Im not sure if this is caused by asian countries with dynamic IP's or just maybe they use proxies ?

Im unsure how to solve that problem. that's why i selected " ALL IP's "

[dotceo]

When I hear "very few" people, sounds to me like it's 1 person that told you that they are having problems and some of their friends.

Users will get that error message when they try to download more than 1 file at a time... I know I do that from sites like rapidshare... When you have EXACT IP, users cannot generate 1 link start downloading, generate another link and start downloading that one simultaneously.

I've been running this software for a decent amount of time, and I've never had any emails from users.

[FZee]

Really ? .... Oh that's good to know.

Mind you what if the geniune users have dynamic IP's ? like some of them in developing parts of the world ?

Its just the fear of losing traffic once i enable "EXACT IP" ... I know rapidshare & megaupload prefer single IP's ... this happend when i tried to download 2 files as a regular user.

[dotceo]

Your site wont sink because of 3 visitors with "dynamic" IP addresses.

Dynamic IP addresses don't change every for every link you click... The DNS server will lease an IP address to the user for 24 hours. If the user disconnects the internet, that IP address will go back to the pool. When they reconnect they will be given a new IP address. If the user stays connected for more then 24 hours, the IP address will in most cases re-lease for another 24 hours.

In the unlikely scenario where a user is releasing and renewing his/her IP address every minute, it would cause this problem.

[ankurs]

[FZee]

Thank you for the clarification ankus & dotceo... That helped a lot!...

I'm going to select "EXACT IP" as an option.

[PowerChaos]

i need to denie a little whit this

let explain how the system works

some users (yes some , not mutch but some , same as a few of my clients) does have a variable ip adress

meaning , if you browse a website then it keeps changing betwean ip's or the script cant get your good ip (script get a invalid ip)

this is how the system works

1. Exact downloader IP <-- put your exact ip in htacces to allow only a contection from that ip , no other ip's can conect to it as they get a 404 error page

2. 111.222.333.*** <-- puts your ip adress in it exept for the last 3 numbers (255.255.255.0 ) meaning that 255.255.255.0 and 255.255.255.255 can download that file

3.111.222.***.*** <-- same as above , exept only your first 2 ip blocks get counted (255.255.0.0 -> 255.255.255.255 )

4.All IPs <-- 0.0.0.0 -> 255.255.255.255

please note , 255.255.255.255 is your ip

to give a better example

my ip is 168.1.1.0 , on example nr 2 ,user 168.1.1.0 can download the file that user 168.1.1.125 requested

on example nr 3, user 168.1.154.255 can download a file that user 168.1.25.120 requested

the best option is to put it on number 2 , as you wont get trouble anymore with variable ip's

exept if some user browsers got trouble with htacces files and instand redirections , but then none of the solutions will work :d

Greetings From PowerChaos

[FZee]

Thank you my friend.

This helps a lot for me. Now my clients cannot complain

PS. does MegaUpload or RapidShare use 1.1.1.*** option instead of TRUE IP ?

[PowerChaos]

i can only speak for rapidshare

they use a cooky system , so nothing to do with the ip adress

and as premium , you login to premium and you get a cooky to
so you can download instand , but doesnt works if you take it from somewhere els as it ask you to login again (cooky based)

funny part of this is , if you use a download manager and you login with it that it still refuse to download

so only there download manager can handle it at full speed

so it have nothing to do with ip , as it is sesion based cooky's

its a totaly differend system then with htacces
and probaly harder to to configure then the htacces file

ps: i am not sure of that part , but i am sure that it isnt ip related

Greetings From PowerChaos

[FZee]

Thank you man that makes a lot of sense.


PS. Sometimes I wonder if future XF 1.8 could have nice security changes