How to make link inactive after 24 hours and should not work by second click

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I am using asp.net web application. I am sending a mail to user in that passing a link. By pressing that link, making changes in my database. I am using following code:

It is working fine for sending email with link. I want that link should be inactive after 24 hours and pressed only once. If pressed twice should not work. How to do that?

using (MailMessage mm = new MailMessage("sender@gmail.com", txtEmail.Text))
{
    mm.Subject = "Account Activation";
    string body = "Hello " + txtUsername.Text.Trim() + ",";
    body += "<br /><br />Please click the following link to activate your account";
    body += "<br /><a href = '" + Request.Url.AbsoluteUri.Replace("CS.aspx", "CS_Activation.aspx?ActivationCode=" + activationCode) + "'>Click here to activate your account.</a>";
    body += "<br /><br />Thanks";
    mm.Body = body;
    mm.IsBodyHtml = true;
    SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient();
    smtp.Host = "smtp.gmail.com";
    smtp.EnableSsl = true;
    NetworkCredential NetworkCred = new NetworkCredential("sender@gmail.com", "<password>");
    smtp.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
    smtp.Credentials = NetworkCred;
    smtp.Port = 587;
    smtp.Send(mm);
}

What I have tried:

using (MailMessage mm = new MailMessage("sender@gmail.com", txtEmail.Text))
{
    mm.Subject = "Account Activation";
    string body = "Hello " + txtUsername.Text.Trim() + ",";
    body += "<br /><br />Please click the following link to activate your account";
    body += "<br /><a href = '" + Request.Url.AbsoluteUri.Replace("CS.aspx", "CS_Activation.aspx?ActivationCode=" + activationCode) + "'>Click here to activate your account.</a>";
    body += "<br /><br />Thanks";
    mm.Body = body;
    mm.IsBodyHtml = true;
    SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient();
    smtp.Host = "smtp.gmail.com";
    smtp.EnableSsl = true;
    NetworkCredential NetworkCred = new NetworkCredential("sender@gmail.com", "<password>");
    smtp.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
    smtp.Credentials = NetworkCred;
    smtp.Port = 587;
    smtp.Send(mm);
}

Posted 28-Jan-18 23:30pm

Member 11589429

Updated 28-Jan-18 23:35pm

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F-ES Sitecore 29-Jan-18 5:34am

Update your database to have a "Email_Sent" field for the user and when you send the email update the user's Email_Sent date to show this. Before you attempt to send the email check the value of Email_Sent to see if it has been less than 24 hours since the email was sent and if so do nothing.

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OriginalGriff · Answer 1 · 2018-01-28T23:35:00

Store the activation code in a DB, along with the expiry time, and the details needed to activate the account.
When they follow the link, pick up the activation code from the query string and look it up in your DB.
1) If it isn't there, it's been used.
2) If it is there, check the expiry date.
2.1) If it's still valid, activate the account and delete the activation table row.
2.2) If it's invalid, delete the row, delete the account, and show a "expired" message on the page.