How do I protect a website?

Pennywise

I've been using MS FrontPage for some personal websites for a few years, so I know enough about it to get a simple website up and running on the web.

I've now got a new website to publish but I don't want it open for public viewing. I don't want a subscription site or anything like that for lots of users. It is just for viewing of myself and a couple of other people. It will have information on it that I wouldn't want in the public domain - nothing illegal or immoral, just things that are confidential between myself and these other people.

I've tried adding the front page add-ons but I can't get anywhere with them at all - I've spent literally days trying to make them work, following the helpfiles etc., but either my web hosts or my own systems are just not working.

Any other ways of getting a protected website? I've used Joomla in the past and I know how to make that password protected, but is it really safe? It seems to me like it could be a little too easy for a set up mistake to make it easily accessible to anyone.

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

BillScarab

Would it be easier to just use somehting like Facebook and only add the people you want to see the info as friends and no-one else?

[Deleted User]

Install a web forum, make a forum invisible to anyone who isn't logged in, sign your friends up, disable registration, voila.

Decado23

Pennywise wrote: »

Any other ways of getting a protected website? I've used Joomla in the past and I know how to make that password protected, but is it really safe? It seems to me like it could be a little too easy for a set up mistake to make it easily accessible to anyone.

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

To be honest, the same can be said of any system - if it's not set up correctly then there can be problems later.

If I recall correctly, Joomla uses php - if you (or your host) keeps the php backend up to date and secure(edit: same goes for apache/iis/whatever else is running) you'll probably be ok ('zero day' exploits excluded).

would a password protected ftp server be worth considering - only give out the password to chosen people, deny guest logon etc?

[Deleted User]

I thought that servers can be configured with password protected folders. all you need to do is put your content inside one of those. Job done.

http://www.thesitewizard.com/apache/password-protect-directory.shtml

Find a web host that will let you set up folders like this on an apache server. Oh yeh, and ditch MS Frontpage - its rubbish

Decado23

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Oh yeh, and ditch MS Frontpage - its rubbish

Can't say i've used it myself, but from what I've heard this is probably the best advice you'll get all day.

verbyl.belch

ringo_24601 wrote:

...Oh yeh, and ditch MS Frontpage - its rubbish

Decado23 wrote: »

Can't say i've used it myself, but from what I've heard this is probably the best advice you'll get all day.

What do you suggest should be used as an alternative?

For my website, i mainly add photogalleries and have managed ok with notepad but it is hard to keep track of what you're editing. Is dreamweaver considered to be ok? I had a free trial of that some time ago and found it quite useful (being able to view the code and the design at the same time). Or can you suggest something else?

thanks

(sorry to go OT)

Decado23

Dreamweaver is generall considered to be good as far as I know.

A guy here at work swears blind you can do anything you need in notepad, but he's funny like that.

[Deleted User]

Dreamweaver is pretty good, but learning HTML and CSS properly is the best method, then ditch WYSIWYG editors and just use a programmers notepad (e.g. notepad++)

For photo galleries, i use this free flash gallery system - http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/

totalsolutions

Don't use welcome.htm or home.htm. Tell friends you site name for example <name>.co.uk/~pennywise that will stop people dead when they go to<name>.co.uk as there will not be anything there.

Put a tag in to stop the robots.

[Deleted User]

What are you trying to achieve? Are you just displaying pictures that you don't want people to see?

In terms of an editor, ditch Frontpage and don't bother with Dreamweaver.

Here's a list of editors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_HTML_editors

Go look at which are for Windows and which are Free, try a few out and settle on one. Amaya is probably going to be as good a place to start as any.