MikeRogers0/MikeRogersIO

---
layout: post
title: Securing Links
description: A simple link cloaker example with PHP
---
Have you ever wanted to secure links on your website (for example hide the real source of a file)? Here is a quick and easy way to do this.

## The Code

```php
<?php # File created on 11th February 2009 by Mike Rogers (http://mikerogers.io/). 

## Start defining constants ## 
define(RUN_ERRORS, TRUE); // Do you want the script to display errors? TRUE = yes you do.
define(redirect_or_echo, 'redirect'); // Do you want to redirect the user to another website, or just echo the other other webpages' content. 'redirect' will redirect, 'echo' will return the web pages content. I recommend redirect.
## End defining constants ##

/* Start the link codes. The code is the ?code=123 part of the URL. The array should be formatted like:
$link['code'] = 'http://URL';
You may find it easier to do this with MySQL or including this as a separate file. Too many links could lower performance, but for a small website just trying to cloak a few links this is good :)
*/
$link['1'] = 'http://www.site.com/';

// Start the system.
function external_url($url){
    if($return = @file_get_contents($url)){
        return $return;
    }elseif(function_exists("curl_init")){
        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); 
        $return = curl_exec($ch);
        curl_close($ch);
        return $return;
    }elseif($return = @implode("", @file($url))){
        return $return;
    } else {
        return NULL;
    }
}


// Checks if the code is a number
if(is_numeric($_GET['code']) && is_array($link)){
    if(isset($link[$_GET['code']])){
        if(redirect_or_echo === 'redirect'){
            header('location: '.$link[$_GET['code']]);
        } elseif(redirect_or_echo === 'echo'){
            echo external_url($link[$_GET['code']]);
        }else{
            if(RUN_ERRORS === TRUE){
                echo 'Sorry, an internal error has occurred.';    
            }
        }
    } else {
        if(RUN_ERRORS === TRUE){
            echo 'Sorry, the code you have provided is incorrect.';    
        }
    }
}else{
    if(RUN_ERRORS === TRUE){
        echo 'Sorry, the code you have provided is incorrect.';    
    }
}
/*
You are free to share, modify and use this code for commercial uses. Please give a link back (to https://mikerogers.io/ ) if you can, but you don't have you.

I claim no liability in this code, you use it at your own risk.
*/
?>
```