<< back to knowledgebase home

Password protection for pages linked via menus (MM1, MM2)

Article ID: 000148

Category: Browser Issues

Issue

How do I make a menu item ask for a password when it is clicked? I want password protection on some of the pages which are linked to by my menu.

Solution

Password protection can be applied to certain pages or folders in your site but this is not done through MenuMachine. You must use the same method to password protect pages accessed via a menu link that you would if you were accessing the page via a normal link.

MenuMachine itself cannot provide a secure password mechanism, this can only be done on the web server that delivers your pages.

The password protection method must be applied to the page you want to protect itself or the directory the page is in. Then, no matter how the page is accessed, a password will always be required to view it.

How to add password protection to pages

GoLive contains a Password Action which can be placed on individual pages. This is fairly simple to do but it relies on security by obscurity and is not a safe way to protect your pages. We do not recommend using this action for data that must be secure.

This tutorial by Michael Ahgren at GoLiveCentral.com shows a much more secure method that you can use to protect your pages:

http://www.golivecentral.com/pages/txttut/htacc.shtml

If you have applied security to a folder on your server using this method, you will be asked for a password when you access a protected page using your menu (or via any other link).

Note: this will only work when viewing pages from the server, not from your local drive.

If you want to be able to give different users unique passwords for the same page or folder, you will need to use another method such as a database plus server-side scripting (.cgi, .php, .jsp, .asp etc.) but this is more complex to configure and will likely require a programmer.

Last updated: February 6, 2007

This article has been viewed 5172 times.