Secure display image outside root

Hi all

i have my whole codeigniter placed outside my root except for the assets (css,js)

i use a php script to display my images in the view like so

Code:

<img class="img-circle" src="../image.php?img=me.jpg" alt="">

the image.php contents look like this

PHP Code:

<?php  

  header('Content-Type: image/jpg');
  readfile("../images/" . $_GET['img']);
   
?>

I would like to prevent a non logged on user to link to my images using the url:

https://mydomaine.be/image.php?img=avatar.png


is there a way to do this.

i have tried placing code inside the image.php (if ci loggedinuser bla bla) but i dont have access to the CI core inside my image.php so dont work.
by the way the image.php is in the root. (http://www.mydomain.be/image.php)

what would be the best way to achieve this

thanks to all

It depends how you are logging your users (or at least recognizing they are logged in). If it is in a cookie, you know the cookie name, just interrogate the cookie using standard php. If you are using a flag in a database table, again just connect to and interrogate the database using standard php. Would that not do what you are looking for?

If your prob is not having CI why not just define absolute paths for:
$system_path and $application_folder
and then require the index.php in your php file also as absolute path

To do what you want you should create a 'image' controller and let CI spit out the correct image.

But if you want to prevent hotlinking, perhaps its easier to disable that through .htaccess.