Introduction

The AIS Web Server supports the ability to make some parts of your website secret, so that they can only be viewed by selected people, who must identify themselves by a user name and a password. You can choose your own user names and passwords; you can add and remove users, and you can change passwords whenever you wish.

Using the AIS Web Server, protection applies to a directory and to all pages at and below that directory. A directory is protected by a group which contains one or more users (with their passwords). You can create as many groups as you like, and a single group may be used on more than one directory. You can alse remove all protection from a directory.

A Simple Example

Suppose that your website contains the following directories and pages (in this example, all pages have the .htm extension):

/htdocs
/htdocs/index.htm
/htdocs/page1.htm
/htdocs/page2.htm
/htdocs/secret/index.htm
/htdocs/secret/secret1.htm
/htdocs/secret/secret2.htm


To make the pages in /htdocs/secret secret, you would create a group called, say secret (though you can call it pretty wel anything you like), and associate it with /htdocs/secret. Then, you could add users mike and roger to the group, each with a different password. In addition, you should add a user name and password for yourself, otherwise you cannot view the secret pages!

Whenever a user tries to access one of the secret pages, their browser should display a box into which a user name and password must be entered. If you tell mike and roger their passwords, then they, but nobody else, can view the secret pages. The popup box will also contain a title, which you can set.

Making Pages Secret

The AIS Secret Pages facility is controlled by a set of web pages. Click here to access these pages. You will need to provide the name and password that you use when uploading pages by FTP; this is to stop anyone else from altering your settings.