Internet Explorer http referer issue

Question

it seems I have run into a problem with Internet Explorer 7. I have an html page that has links to files on another server. The server I am linking to checks the referrer of

Answer 1

Disable firewalls, and anti-virus /or anti-spyware checking and see if that helps. I know this may sound trollish, but I've personally seen many instances where the problem miraculously disappeared when this advice was taken.

They tend to have an overzealous idea sometimes of what "Secure" is, and break browser behaviour in the progress. ( If you have AVG and have problems with email ( pop3 ), turn off AVG and watch email magically return to working status )

Answer 2

I have resolved it, include this code in all pages of your project

session_start();
if($_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'] == 443 )
    $http = 'https://';
else
    $http = 'http://';

$adress = $http.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];  

$_SESSION['referer'] = $_SESSION['current_page'];
$_SESSION['current_page'] = $adress;
$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] = $_SESSION['referer'];

Answer 3

You may want to use a different mechanism anyway. Referrers are easily spoofed. Checking referrers really isn't a good security solution, and if they're going to cause you headaches like this, maybe you want to find another way.

For example, the server generating the first page could add an authorization token to the URLs to the second server, and the second server could check that the tokens are valid. This way, all of the details are under your control, and the only browser behavior you're counting on is that the full URL is sent to the second server.

Answer 4

I find this solution at http://dracoblue.net/dev/referer-with-documentlocation-is-broken-in-internet-explorer/145/ , but i haven't tried myself

function goto(url)
{
    var referLink = document.createElement('a');
    referLink.href = url;
    document.body.appendChild(referLink);
    referLink.click();
}

Answer 5

How are you "getting to" the file in question?

IF YOU ARE USING JAVASCRIPT to get to the file, IE WILL FAIL.

IE has had a major bug since the dawn of time on this.

e.g. document.location.href = 'myNewPage.html'; //FAILS to pass referer in IE

Bug #421 over on Web Bug Track

won't be fixed in IE8 either! :-(

Answer 6

I'm not using IE7 so I can not check this.. but I guess this should work without problems:

<script type="text/javascript">
      document.location= "www.your-server.com/your_page.html?referrer=" + document.location.href;
</script>

And than on the the second server you can check the value of the referrer parameter instead of relying on whether browser sends the referrer or not.