I need to password protect a couple of entries on a site. It is easy to do at the template level but this is at the entry level. I am running Expression Engine.
I tried setting up an htaccess file but it is not yet effective.
It is like this:
AuthName "Restricted Area"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/server/.htpasswds/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
<Files template_group/entry_name>
require valid-user
</Files>
Where template_group is the name of the actual template_group and entry_name is the actual name of the entry.
Any assistance will be appreciated.
Thanks.
While ExpressionEngine provides its own means for Template Access Restriction to password-protect pages and templates — including handling .htaccess Apache Basic HTTP Authentication — there are situations where you might not want to, or are unable, to use it:
For example, the Freelancer Version of ExpressionEngine doesn't include the Member Management Module, so the Template Preferences Manager doesn't offer Access Restrictions.
Also, if you elect to use ExpressionEngine's HTTP Authentication, only users with member accounts [in ExpressionEngine] will be able to login, since EE uses its local member database for authentication.
If you're the DIY type, you can modify your httpd.conf to limit and password-protect access to ExpressionEngine pages, entries and templates.
This technique works by:
Editing Apache's httpd.conf
Creating .htpasswd or .htgroup files
Specifying the URL(s) to Protect
Note: Since we are attempting to match objects at the URL level and not the physical filesystem, we must use a <Location> or <LocationMatch> directive1.
Put the following in your server's httpd.conf or vhost.conf file:
<LocationMatch "^/private">
AuthName "Restricted Area"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /path/to/website/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
Require valid-user
</LocationMatch>
Be sure to change the values of the directive to your liking and your hosting environment.
If you haven't already, create the .htpasswd password file to encrypt the desired passwords, either using the command line or an Online .htaccess Password Generator:
htpasswd -c /path/to/website/.htpasswd username
If the htpasswd command is not in your Unix path, you'll have to type the full path to the file to get it to run. On my server, it would be:
/usr/sbin/htpasswd -c /path/to/website/.htpasswd username
Then, htpasswd will ask you for the user's password, and ask you to type it again to confirm:
# htpasswd -c /path/to/website/.htpasswd username
New password: changeme
Re-type new password: changeme
Adding password for user username
With everything in place and working, any request to /private* will be handled by Apache before it's routed to ExpressionEngine.
Voilà — Apache password-protected directories working in harmony with ExpressionEngine (or any CMS really, such as WordPress, MovableType or TextPattern).
The context of the <Location> directive specifies that it can only be used in server config and virtual host configuration files. This means we can't put the rules in a .htaccess file, otherwise Apache will throw a 500 Internal Server Error with the description "Location not allowed here".
If you are attempting to match objects at the URL level, you must use <Location>
If you are attempting to match objects at the filesystem level, you must use <Directory> and/or <Files>
I answered two similar questions on this subject that may be of benefit to you.
Nevertheless, there are several ways to password-protect pages in an ExpressionEngine site:
Template Preferences Manager
Conditional Global Variables
Third-Party Add-Ons
By far the easiest solution to your situation is to use the built-in Template Preferences Manager in the ExpressionEngine Control Panel and assign the "private" entries to a template that requires authentication.
A third-party add-on such as Entry Access by Yuri Salimovskiy of IntoEEtive may aide in your benefit. Entry Access enables you to restrict front-end access to certain channel entries for certain members or member group.
Related
I am trying to secure a website with an .htaccess file with Apache2. It works well but the message specified with the AuthName line is not visible on Chrome (but it is visible on Firefox !). What should I do to make it visible on Chrome?
Here is my .htaccess file
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Restricted Access"
AuthFile "/etc/apache2/.htpasswd"
Require valid-user
On Firefox the pop-up tells
The site ... is requesting your username and password. The site says: "Restricted Access"
But on Chrome it only tells
Sign in
What should I do to make it visible on Chrome?
There is nothing you can do.
The browser decides whether it wants to display this information to the user in some way, or not.
The phrasing used in the Apache documentation already hints at that (highlights by me) -
https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_authn_core.html#authname:
The string provided for the AuthName is what will appear in the password dialog provided by most browsers.
https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/howto/auth.html#gettingitworking:
The AuthName directive sets the Realm to be used in the authentication. The realm serves two major functions. First, the client often presents this information to the user as part of the password dialog box. Second, it is used by the client to determine what password to send for a given authenticated area.
Here is a workaround which can give some info for your unlucky visitor, using custom error document feature after the login attempt fails:
Put this line into your .htaccess file:
ErrorDocument 401 YYYY-MM-DDTHHMM-Site-update-under-way-Estimate-30-min
The continuous text seems to get displayed after login fails or is canceled. No dots (.) or colons (:) allowed. Of course it should represent a valid filename, but if the user has no access to public_html due to login fail a file maybe can't be served anyway. If You can serve a proper 401 error page, You can explain the situation there.
(edit 1) Maybe this behaviour is a curiosity in my case with shared hosting. The shared server there seems to be nginx which I guess "is forced" to accept .htaccess directives.
(edit 2) Confirmed this behaviour also with Apache 2.4 server
A friend wants me to implement basic file security on his site that he can look after himself.
I think the simplest option is to put a .htaccess file into the folder he wants to protect and that will redirect all requests to a php file in the root.
The php file will then check if the user is logged in and serve the file or request a fixed shared login password.
It's going ok so far except for two problems.
Firstly I can't get the htaccess file work based on the directory it is located in - I can only manage it by hard coding the directory into the htaccess file.
Secondly, I can get the php file to know the url of the file that was requested.
Any help and pointers would be great!
It sounds like what you are wanting to do can be done a little more easily with an .htpasswd setup.
You will just place this in an .htaccess of the directory you are trying to protect and all of the sub-directories will be protected as well.
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Password Protected Area"
AuthUserFile /path/to/.htpasswd
Require valid-user
And then create an .htpasswd file and use a tool like this to generate the credentials.
Alternatively, the way you are suggesting to do it will require the use of either cookies or sessions and here is another question that should help a bit more with setting that up.
i have a website that need to be unavailable for public.
I cannot test my website locally because lot of contents are depend on databases and images.
At present i am using .htaccess to deny all the people,bots and allow my ip address to use the site. What happens i have a dial-up ADSL modem and my ISP connection is frequently disconnecting. So i need to change the allowed IP address in htaccess frequently.This is terrible.
Is there any other way to overcome this situation. I saw an article to make the site password protected. is it okay or what should i do to overcome this terrible scenario.
Thanks
Yes, password protecting is fine. Follow this guide: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/howto/auth.html
You need to create an htpasswd file, essentially the file that holds your username and password. If you don't have shell access on your hosting plan, you can go to an online generator and create the file locally and upload it to your hosting site (don't put it in your document root).
Then add this to your htaccess file:
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Restricted Files"
AuthUserFile /usr/local/apache/passwd/passwords
Require valid-user
You can also whitelist IPs like you did before but you need to add this line:
Satisfy Any
So that your Allow from 123.45.67.89 lines is sufficient and don't need to log in from that IP.
I need to protect a clients CMS with a username and password, only one username is needed. I was going to use htaccess because its so quick to add.
I'll be adding it using the password directories feature in WHM which stores the passwords here:
AuthUserFile "/home/username/.htpasswds/public_html/cms/passwd"
How secure is this? Are there ways to get into folders such as .htpasswds?
Straight from Apache's documentation
The most common method is Basic, and this is the method implemented by mod_auth_basic. It is important to be aware, however, that Basic authentication sends the password from the client to the server unencrypted. This method should therefore not be used for highly sensitive data, unless accompanied by mod_ssl. Apache supports one other authentication method: AuthType Digest. This method is implemented by mod_auth_digest and is much more secure. Most recent browsers support Digest authentication.
Please read the rest HERE
Please read the comments, things have changed since 2011. Good catch #reve_etrange
You should deny access to the folder that contains passwd files
<Directory /home/*>
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
Satisfy all
</Directory>
also don't forget that http traffic can be captured, so it won't suit for financial transactions.
As long as you set up the proper restrictions in your httpd.conf file to block external requests for .htaccess, and .htpasswd you should be okay.
You can block external requests (in Apache) with the following directives:
# The following code hides .htaccess and .htpasswd files from sites visitors.
<FilesMatch "^\.ht">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
Satisfy All
</FilesMatch>
I have a private folder on my domain like
http://example.com/protected
and i stored lot of images and pdf file there
/protected/pad1.pdf
/protected/pad2.pdf
/protected/pad1.png
/protected/pad1.png
supose these are the files, how can i hide or protect access to there files with the help of .htaccess file.
allow only users those who knows the password.
is it possible ???
Check out Apache's page on Authentication, Authorization and Access Control -- one method would be using Basic or Digest authentication. That would look something like this:
AuthType Digest
AuthName "Private files"
AuthDigestFile /usr/local/apache/passwd/digest
Require user (usernames here)
Of course, you need to generate a password and/or digest file using htdigest or htpasswd as well, but that procedure is explained in the document I linked to.
Or for zero configuration and zero access:
Order Allow, Deny
Deny From All
=)