Prevent browsing directly to link

Question

Hi all,
I have a report (non-updateable) with a column used to download a file
the column link section contains the following :
link text : <img src="#IMAGE_PREFIX#save.gif" border="0">
target : URL
URL : #OWNER#.download_bfile?p_bfile=#ROWID#
this all works fine
however the constructed url :
http://<myip>:8080/apex/<schema>.download_bfile?p_bfile=AAADmPAAEAAAAcMAAA
ends up in the IE history which is annoying
can I prevent this ?
even more important: a user can browse to such a URL without logging in
how can I prevent this ?
(put a test in download_bfile or someting ?)
thx

Answer 1

thx, stupid me I just made a reference to that very document to help out someone on this forum :)
howver I use apex 2.1 with Oracle XE which does not seem to contain an
apex_application or htmldb_application package
however I have found a solution myself, I changed my download_bfile stored proc
to start with this code :
BEGIN
dir := OWA_UTIL.get_cgi_env ('HTTP_REFERER');
IF dir IS NULL OR INSTR (dir, OWA_UTIL.get_cgi_env ('HTTP_HOST')) = 0
THEN
RAISE VALUE_ERROR;
END IF;
EXCEPTION
WHEN VALUE_ERROR
THEN
write_log ('illegal access detected');
RETURN;
END;
(the value_error can occur when the stored proc is launched directly in sql*plus)
http_referer is null when the url is launched directly (http_cookie also)
solves my problem
thx for your assistance