Any asp.net web services wizards out there?

[nekrum]

Hi

I've developed a web service which I would like to make available on a subscription basis. The service checks the status of the subscription before it fires back and data.

The question: Is there a way to tell what IP Address the client has called the service from? Or is there a way in which I can stop people using the same subscription details from multiple sites?

Any advice would be appreciated - thanks in advance..

[gopher]

The IP address is part of the server variables collection (accessed via Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_ADDR" ) ).


edited to remove accidental inappropriate smiley

Edited by gopher on Thursday 1st February 09:32

[nekrum]

Thanks gopher

Do you know if there is a way to stop multiple use from a shared hosting server as this would give the same IP address?!..

[gopher]

nekrum said:

Thanks gopher

Do you know if there is a way to stop multiple use from a shared hosting server as this would give the same IP address?!..

You're going to need to identify individual clients (human or machine) if that's the case, probably best if you describe the setup (who or what access your service, from where etc etc).

Cheers

Paul

[SlidingSideways]

Do they already have to supply a username? If so, you can code it to only allow a specific username from a specific IP.
Either that, or some sort of certificate/hostname authentication.

The easier way is to make them pay per hit.

[nekrum]

Hi

It's basically a subscription based information service aimed at a niche vertical market. I have done the routine so that it validates the clients account information before it sends the data back but I need to find a way to ensure that multiple clients don't use the same account details. There may be situations where the clients host their web sites on the same ISP / server. It's also the type of industry where most of them know each other and I want to limit / stop people getting out of paying the subscription without spending ages doing random searches for people using our service without a subscription. I may be over paranoid maybe?!.

[dilbert]

I think you need some client side stuff. Like a client managed licence server with a node locked encrypted key. If your data is really that valuable, then your customer will put up with it.

[nekrum]

Hi

Thanks for you post so far.

I've been reading up on this and it would appear that I can setup the web proxy and distribute it as a dll. The question is, would it be possible to have a custom dll per subcriber and have the proxy pass a unique value from the dll but also the domain name, ip address or some unique value from the site to validate?!

Any thought would be great...thanks