Password Protected Area
From what I have seen there are a lot of people who would like to create a members only area on their web site but have no knowledge of how to set one up. Well if your host supports PHP and mySQL then what I am about to describe will make things a whole lot easier for you to set one up.
Will it run on my server?
To be able to use this toolkit you should first Check the Server to ensure that your host supports PHP. You will also need to have a mySQL database that you can use to store the login table that this toolkit uses. Everything else is supplied and the scripts are usable as supplied with no actual PHP programming knowledge required.
What You Get
The toolkit contains a number of complete web pages that perform the basic functions required to maintain your member's area as well as function libraries that contain everything necessary to maintain a members only area on your site. There are also example pages that show you what you need to add to your pages to place them into the members area. The following complete pages are supplied:
- login.php which displays when someone tries to access a password protected page without having logged in
- lost.php a page where people who have forgotten their password can go to get a new one emailed to them
- password.php the page for changing a password once you are logged in
- email.php the page for changing the email address once you are logged in
- join.php a page where people can sign up for a new account (two config fields allow you to set a default number of days the account will exist for, whether they can choose their own password or get one preassigned, and to restrict access to administrators only)
- admin.php a page where administrators can change email addresses, end dates, and change account statuses to lock accounts or assign administrator access
- logout.php logs a person out of the members area so that they will be required to log back in
- update.php which should be set to run at regular intervals to automatically logout anyone logged in for over two hours and delete any accounts with past end dates
In addition to these complete pages you also get pages that show you:
- the code to put in the top of each page that is to be password protected to stop anyone not logged in from accessing it
- the code to display a login form
- the code to display a lost password form
- a script to create the login table in the database along with a default administrator account
What protection Does it Provide
The code supplied in the toolkit uses several techniques to reduce the possibility of people breaking into your members only area. Some of these are:
- Disallows any login attempts for a user for 15 seconds after an invalid attempt
- Assigns a 15 character "token" on successful login and passes the token in a session variable of your choice. If a protected page is accessed without a token that matches a logged in user then the login page will display.
- Passwords are stroed using a one way encryption so only the account owner knows the password. If they lose their password they can reset the password to a random one that is then emailed to them.
- To change the email address associated with an account the password must be entered as well to ensure that only the account owner (or an administrator) can change the email address.
- Built-in facility for time limited accounts.
- Ability for administrators to lock accounts so that they can't be accessed by anyone.
- Either a generated password (or a verification code if you allow password selection during signup) is emailed to the account owner when they join ensuring that you initially have a valid email address for each account.
See it in Action
You can sign up for an account and see how most of the script functions. All of the pages you see are included in the package (of course you don't have to use all of them) as well as the administrator functionality previously described (and which for obvious reasons I haven't provided acces to).
Detailed instructions for how to install the toolkit are included with the script. Please note that if you wish to use this script for anything beyond creating basic password protected pages then you will require a knowledge of PHP so as to be able to integrate this script with the other functuionality that you require.
How to obtain the script
Unfortunately, I have to try to fund the running of this web site somehow and so I have decided to charge a nominal amount for server side scripts such as this one. Use the following form to purchase the Password Protection Toolki for the really cheap price (considering all of the pages and functionality that you get) of just $48.00 USD (Australian residents price is $58.60 AUD including GST). All purchases include 12 months free support including all updates to the script released during that time. If you have a valid discount code then enter it to purchase this script at an even lower price otherwise just leave the discount field blank, select the currency to make your payment and then press the buy now button. The script will be automatically emailed to you as soon as Paypal verifies your payment
Before you purchase this script you should reread the above information to ensure that the script will work on your server. If you cancel at any point during the payment process, you will be returned to this page.
Please make sure that the email account that you supply to Paypal will accept emails with attached zip files from addresses at felgall.com as otherwise your spam filtering may delete your purchase.
