Thread: Help with password protection

Hi,
My name is Tom and I’m very new to all this. I’m building a site for our club. Only 2 pages will be viewable to the public, the other pages and files will only be accessible through a password. With the exception of the log-in form (Name, Password, Submit) the public side appears to be working ok (Brinkleyville.com).
I created (using file manager in cpanel) another directory “member”. I then used cpanel to password protect that directory (member). I then created one username and password for myself.
I then published the “home” page for the private side of the site. When the Publish Web Page window opened, beside ‘Folder:’ I changed (public_html/) to (public_html/member/home). ‘home’ being the name of the page I was trying to publish.
Question 1 Did I do this correct? I can see ‘home’ when I go into file manager.
As stated earlier, I have a simple form in the index page. The password entry is tagged as password in the edit box properties.
Question 2 Must I set up anything in mail to make the form work? If so what specifically, preferably child-like?
Question 3 When I attempt to log in with the username and password I assigned myself I get an error page HTTP 405. Any thoughts on why?
I’ll gladly share any additional information to anyone willing to help.
Thanks THF Client ID# 10770

Hey Tom


Have another look at the demo to protect your pages.

http://www.vodahost.com/DemoDemo/cpa...pdirectory.htm

Check my painting decorators site out it'll give you some sort of idea you may want to try, it is fairly easy to do just a little bit of time needed to get things right.

www.mtd.net.nz

goto the members Login

Login 'painter'

Password 'decorator'

The site only took me an afternoon to do so it's quite smiple.

If you need a hand email me I'll be happy to help

I then published the “home” page for the private side of the site. When the Publish Web Page window opened, beside ‘Folder:’ I changed (public_html/) to (public_html/member/home). ‘home’ being the name of the page I was trying to publish.
Question 1 Did I do this correct?

No. in the publish dialog box, in the field "Folder", you simply type in "public_html/member"

I can see ‘home’ when I go into file manager.

That's ok, but the link from the public index page to the protected pages, must become http://www.brinkleyville.com/members/home.html


As stated earlier, I have a simple form in the index page. The password entry is tagged as password in the edit box properties.


Question 2 Must I set up anything in mail to make the form work? If so what specifically, preferably child-like?

You need to watch the BlueVoda Form Tutorial 1 tutorial. If you already have an email account, you don't need a new one. On the other hand it's your choice.

Question 3 When I attempt to log in with the username and password I assigned myself I get an error page HTTP 405. Any thoughts on why?

Male sure that your username and password are correct. If necessary, reestablish them.

Take a look at this thread, which discusses protecting only a few pages of a site as well as a forum in a second site of the same account (this should spell out clearly all the variables so you can finally understand it): http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/blu...light=password

Beat me to it, General! Oh well....hope it doesn't seem like overkill!

Thank you all; Vasili, navaldesign and Stroke.nz

Was able to utilize the password I had set up.
I can now get from the public side of the site to the private side.
Question;
If I have a dozen pages to put in the password protected directory; when I go through the login screen, what determines the page I'll go to first. I do have a starting (home) page I want everyone to go to first. Is it the order they are published? Its probably very obvious I'm just feeling my way through. Thanks again...Tom

Thank you all; Vasili, navaldesign and Stroke.nz

Was able to utilize the password I had set up.
I can now get from the public side of the site to the private side.
Question;
If I have a dozen pages to put in the password protected directory; when I go through the login screen, what determines the page I'll go to first. I do have a starting (home) page I want everyone to go to first. Is it the order they are published? Its probably very obvious I'm just feeling my way through. Thanks again...Tom

Originally Posted by THF

...
Question;
If I have a dozen pages to put in the password protected directory; when I go through the login screen, what determines the page I'll go to first. I do have a starting (home) page I want everyone to go to first. Is it the order they are published? Its probably very obvious I'm just feeling my way through. Thanks again...Tom

This has been confusing for me for a while now simply due to th way I was trying to understand how it works. Light bulb!! Here's what I know so far:

1. Navigating to a password protected file or page e.g. "http:/www.yourdomain.com/members/home.html"

--Clicking on a link set to this url or typing it in the browser's address bar will start navigating to that exact url and STOPS to prompt for the member's "username" and "password". After submitted, navigation CONTINUES to its destination...(*/members/home.html)
Now, here's where it get's strange for me also:

2. Navigating a password protected directory.
"http://www.yourdomain.com/members/"

--If you were to type this into your browser's address bar to call that directory, you will be prompted for your member "username" and "password" FIRST to gain access to it.
*When calls for for urls to directories are made without referrencing a specific page, the browser first searches for the directory's (index.html) file. When it doesn't find one, it will display and error page e.g. (401.shtml,404.shtml,etc.)

As far as the other pages...how you link them together will determine the order in which they appear to your members.

Now that I figured this out, I had to ask myself a few more questions and look for more info. There's something in cPanel I need to read more about concerning the Index Manager and what it does. I think it can give me a better idea of which directories and files as to protect, how to link to them, and how I will need to organize them for proper flow of access.

I hope this helps a bit. I'll post back when I figure out my strategy for this.

Originally Posted by THF

Thank you all; Vasili, navaldesign and Stroke.nz

Was able to utilize the password I had set up.
I can now get from the public side of the site to the private side.
Question;
If I have a dozen pages to put in the password protected directory; when I go through the login screen, what determines the page I'll go to first. I do have a starting (home) page I want everyone to go to first. Is it the order they are published? Its probably very obvious I'm just feeling my way through. Thanks again...Tom

It would be enough to define the first page as "index" not as "home". Create a folder also on your computer, inside your BV folder, call it "members" and save the protected pages in there. So there will be no conflict with the "index" page of your public site.

The link will simply be http://www.brinkleyville.com/members and it will land in this "index" page. The rest of the links should be as normal: http://www.brinkleyville.com/members/pagename.html

For my page protected directory, to link back to all the other pages I had to use the full page addres i.e. wwww.mydomain/index.php to use index or any other php file name would submit a 404 error.

Hope this helps you out a bit more.