Like, I have file on ftp http://site.com/download/file.zip
I download it by directly request from browser's address tab.
How can I count the number of requests of this file?
Or how do I remove the ability of such requests, so they should work only by php?
If anyone can get at the file by typing in a URL, you can't really count the accesses in any way other than reading the web server access log.
What you can do is:
Generally, the script in step 2 will look somewhat like this:
// Increase your "download count" by one
// $mimeType is the MIME type of the file you are serving
// e.g. "application/octet-stream"
// $filename is the name that the browser will offer as a default
// in the "save file" dialog
// $filepath is the real path of the file on your web server
header('Content-Type: '.$mimeType);
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$filename. '";' );
header('Content-Length: '.filesize($filepath));
readfile($filepath);
die;
You can create a download.php file that processes the download. I mean:
http://site.com/download.php?dl=file
And in such file you do whatever you want (log the timestamp, increase the number of downloads...). Then redirect to download the file.
You can remove the ability to direct access the file with a .htaccess file :
<FilesMatch ~ "^file\.zip$">
Deny from all
</FilesMatch>
If you are not a web guru. You can do what @Ale said by putting it in a file and then creating the file. In that file, put Google analytics and just track it from there. You'll have everything, even where they are, how many different people...so on.
Hope this helps.