stopping access to files by extension

[Hokey]

I am currently writing some php scripts will include different HTML files depending on conditions. Everything is running fine with the scripts, but I would like to block direct access to these included HTML files except when called by the PHP include() function.

I know the best way to do this is to put the files into a folder not accessable through the httpd (above the web root), but I dont want to do this to keep things simple with the Web content developer who does all of our web graphics and HTML coding.

I have looked at the AddType directive for Apache, but this does not seem to do the trick since it just sets the content type of a file.

What I would like to do is this:
If i set the extension of a HTML file to inc - welcome.inc
I dont want a browser to access it by Typing in

http://www.server.com/welcome.inc,

but only access it throught the script index.php that will include() it if the conditions are met.

Is this possible?

 

[Hokey]

I found the answer to my own question and thought that I would post it here just in case someone else could use it. The <FilesMatch> directive will do the trick.

In my case, I put the following the the httpd.conf

<FilesMatch &quot;\.(inc|cfg)$&quot;>
Order allow,deny
Allow from 172.20.152.0/255.255.255.0
Deny from all
</FilesMatch>

This stops direct access to any files on my server with the .inc or .cfg file extensions except for all computers in with an IP address 172.20.152.XXX -- the computers used for our web development.