Simple and effective rate limiter using PHP and MySQL

include("ratelimiter.php");
ratelimiter("255.255.255.255", "myservice", 5, "10 MINUTE"); // -> bool

If the returned value is true, you are not rate limited. Every time that you call this function, the requests column in the database will increment for the given service. Example use:

include("ratelimiter.php");
if (!ratelimiter($_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"], "myservice", 5, "10 MINUTE")) exit("You are being rate limited");
else /* do stuff */;

Please make sure to check LICENSE before using. Commercial use is prohibited.

Clone the repository in your desired folder.

git clone https://github.com/GSRV-io/ratelimiter.git .

Run the following SQL query to initialise the table.

CREATE TABLE `ratelimits` (
  `ip` varchar(256) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_bin NOT NULL,
  `service` varchar(128) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'general',
  `requests` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT 1,
  `time` datetime NOT NULL DEFAULT utc_timestamp()
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

The code looks for a variable named $conn that defines a MySQL connection. The table must be available within this connection. To use a variable with a different name, replace all occurrances of $conn in ratelimiter.php with your variable.