Add your Dynamic IPs to Apache HTACCESS files

Hello!

We threw together a quick & simple script to dynamically update your .htaccess files within apache to add your dynamic IP address to the allow / deny fields.

If you’re looking to password protect an admin area (for example) but your office only has a dynamic IP address, then this script might be handy for you.

Its an extremely simple script that polls your dynamic hostname (if you use no-ip.org or dyndns.org for example) every 15 minutes as a cron job and, if it has changed, updates the .htaccess file

Hopefully it will make your life just a little bit easier

Sample Cron entry :

*/15 * * * * /bin/sh /usr/local/bin/htaccessdynamic.sh yourhostname.dyndns.org /var/www/website.com/public_html/.htaccess > /dev/null 2>&1

And now the script :

#!/bin/bash
# Dynamic IP .htaccess file generator
# Written by Star Dot Hosting
# www.stardothosting.com

dynDomain="$  1"
htaccessLoc="$  2"

dynIP=$  (/usr/bin/dig +short $  dynDomain)

echo "dynip: $  dynIP"
# verify dynIP resembles an IP
if ! echo -n $  dynIP | grep -Eq "[0-9.]+"; then
    exit 1
fi

# if dynIP has changed
if ! cat $  htaccessLoc | /bin/grep -q "$  dynIP"; then

        # grab the old IP
        oldIP=`cat /usr/local/bin/htold-ip.txt`

        # output .htaccess file
        echo "order deny,allow" > $  htaccessLoc 2>&1
        echo "allow from $  dynIP" >> $  htaccessLoc 2>&1
        echo "allow from x.x.x.x" >> $  htaccessLoc 2>&1
        echo "deny from all" >> $  htaccessLoc 2>&1

        # save the new ip to remove next time it changes, overwriting previous old IP
        echo $  dynIP > /usr/local/bin/htold-ip.txt
fi

*.hosting