Instructions by Cheryl E. Ball. Please notify me if you find errors.
These instructions only work for websites located in the
home directories of users within the Humanities Department at Michigan Tech.

1) Open Telnet & login

2) At the prompt, type *protect* (without asterisks)

3) On screen, directions will appear, telling you how to password protect folders within your public_html folder or folders within folders of your public_html. If you choose to password protect a folder that you have not created yet in your public_html, this script will create that folder for you. In all cases, the folder you want to protect MUST be in your public_html. (see Figure 1 below, in which case I wanted to password-protect the folder labelled "journal" in my public_html)

4) After you type in the folder you want and hit Enter/Return, Telnet will spit out a URL-like string. Copy all of this string EXCEPT FOR THE FIRST SLASH.

NOTE: in the Figure below, ignore the "permissions" prompt. That is used only when updating changes to your webpage and does not apply to the Password Protection system.

Figure 1: Steps 1 thru 4 of creating a password-protected site.

5) In a web browser, go to http://www.hu.mtu.edu/cgi-bin/admin.cgi (see figure 2 below)

6) For the password, type *huweb1* (with no asterisks)

7) For the directory, paste in the string you copied from Telnet.

8) Hit Refresh.

Figure 2: The Password Protection login

 

9) On the next page, you will see a long list of options (See Figure 3). The first thing you need to do is to scroll half-way down the page to the area called *Generate .htaccess file* and click on the box that says *Create .htaccess file on server.* The directories should already be filled in for you. Then click on the *Generate* button.

Figure 3: The Generate .htaccess file section

 

10) This will bring you to a new screen confirming the .htaccess file has been successfully created (See Fig. 4). Hit the Back button on your browser to return to the options page.

Figure 4: File Created! page seen after generating the .htaccess file.

 

11) You can begin adding users (see Figure 5). You can create one login and password for the entire password-protected folder, or individual logins (for students, say).

The username is one that you create specifically for this site (not necessarily a specific login, etc.). In the example, I want to create a group login for all the readers of my journal site, so I've named the username *cheryls*.

The password, again, is something you create right here, for your users (individual or group) to access the site. You can choose anything, but write it down :).

The name can be anything, but needs to be completed because this is how Keith keeps track of the password-protected sites within the system. I've chosen *Journal* since this is similar to my journaling site.

Don't worry about the email and comments section -- i don't think they've ever worked...

After each user you want to create, click the Add User button. The usernames will appear in the box below it.

Figure 5: Adding individual or group users to be able to access your password-protected site.

 

12) There are many other options of password protecting a site that you can explore. But, at this point, you should check your site to make sure the password protection is actually working. You will get a pop-up box when you enter the URL and you'll need to type in the username and password you just created to access the site.