build links in tables from cell content

dcwaits · Joined: 05 Aug 2009 Posts: 3

I use an outside service to display product data sheets on our intranet.
The links are constructed as :

http://outsideservice.com:8080/poster.htm?username=username&password=PASSWORD&upc=68785576060

where the UPC code (last 11 characters) are the only changing value from one product to the next. Building a table with appropriate links was no problem.

The problem:
Now I want to be able to use the service on my public web site. Since the makeup of the link would expose my username and password to the public and to search engines, I need to hide the actual href="" from the visitors.

How could I enter the first part of the link automatically without exposing it to the user when someone clicks on the table cell containing the UPC code.

kanenas · Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 341

You can't securely link directly to the outside service no matter how well hidden you make your credentials, as you'll still need to give them to the visitor's browser. What you can do instead is use your server as a proxy. Write a simple server side script that takes a UPC code, requests the corresponding page from the external server and returns the result to the visitor.

dcwaits · Joined: 05 Aug 2009 Posts: 3

I am pretty green with html and scripts. The I item I retrieve from the service is ALWAYS a .PDF file. Could you help me write a cgi script to do this?

The service always hides the URL with a redirect so all the end user gets is the http://outsideservice.com:8080/index.jsp in the address bar, once the page loads. I would be ok with my server downloading the file and renaming it, and make the renamed file available from my server.

kanenas · Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 341

What languages and frameworks are available on your server? Do you need to authenticate visitors, or do you want to give everyone access to the PDFs? What's the URI for a sample page on the site that needs to link to a PDF?