CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javajakarta-ee
Punter Vicky
Punter Vicky

Reputation: 17032

Generating Dynamic URLs

I have a list of users across various companies who are using one of the functionality that our website provides. Whenever they contact our business group , we need to send a url via email to the requestor in order for them to upload some data. All these external users do not have any dedicated account. However we do not want a static link to be provided to them as this can be accessed by anyone over the internet. We want dynamic links to be generated. Is this something that is usually done? Is there an industry accepted way of doing this? Should we ensure that the dynamic link expires after a certain amount of time - if so , are there any design options?

Thanks a lot!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1721

Answers (3)

Oleksandr_DJ
Oleksandr_DJ

Reputation: 1515

Other variant is to use exists cookies on that site in web browser (of course, if they are).
But there are some drawbacks in this solution:
User can open link in different machine, different browser. User can clean all cookies or they can expire after it was visited your site last time when user try to go on granted URL. In these cases user won't access your page.

Upvotes: 2

eis
eis

Reputation: 53543

Usually, parameters to urls and not the actual urls are what's dynamic. Basically you generate params that are stored somewhere, typically on the database, and send email with the url and the parameter(s). This url is valid for only a limited period of time and possibly only for one request.

Answers to questions:

  • yes, this is something that is quite commonly used in, for example, unsubscribing from a mailing list or validating an account with a working email address
  • I'm not aware of any single way that is "industry accepted", there are many ways of doing it, but the idea is not that complex - you just need to decide on a suitable token format
  • normally you should ensure that the link expires after a certain amount of time. Depending on the use case that can be some days, a week or something else. In practice, you'd remove or disable the generated parameters in your database. However, if this data is something that might be needed for extended periods of time, you might want to think up a functionality so that it can be retrieved later on.

Upvotes: 2

Alban Dericbourg
Alban Dericbourg

Reputation: 1636

You may have a static URL taking a token as parameter. Eg. http://www.mycompany.com/exchange/<UUID> or http://www.mycompany.com/exchange?token=<UUID>.

The UUID could have a validity in a time range or be limited to a single use (one access or one upload).

Upvotes: 2

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