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I want to create a forum where I will have attachments available for download to registered users. I'd like to be able to see which registered users have downloaded which files. Is there a way to do that using SMF or PHPBB? I don't need to have 100% accuracy, as I imagine there are probably sneaky ways of masking your download, but this will be on a forum that is not really attracting people that would be using those methods-IE these are totally legit files that people will be downloading in a business setting.

PS: The files will live on my server, so I suppose it's possible to add a second layer where a user has to enter a password, but I prefer to just have the files as attachments on the forum.

Thanks for any help!

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  • Nice-two down-votes and no comments...If there is a better place to ask this question-feel free to comment on where.
    – Joel
    Aug 14, 2011 at 7:01

2 Answers 2

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You could append the user's ID or username as a part of a query string on the download link in your forum software's templates and periodically grep your webserver logs for requests on the download script and store username/file correlations -or- you could modify the download script to log to a file or update a database once a file is downloaded (if you take this route, it would be advisable to store a value from the user's session variables).

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You could use a third-party downloads service such as e-junkie, which offers a free downloads feature where users get access to downloads in return for providing their email address.

If you're looking for a solution that specifically uses SMF or phpBB, it might be worth asking on the SMF or phpBB community boards. In particular, I know that phpBB already features a download counter for files attached to forum posts, so a good starting point would be to ask how you might adapt the counter code to also log the forum user who downloaded the file.

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