NOTE: Not Freeware.
.htaccess manager : New Version 3.3
This is a perl CGI script used to manage multiple usernames/passwords for .htaccess/.htpasswd directory protection. This works on most web sites and can be used to handle many password protected folders. In addition to storing the username and encrypted password, you may add additional info for your members such as name, e-mail and comments to help you manage who has access to your “members only” web site. New features include setting an expiration date for a user, keyword search of your members’ list and batch removal of users.
FEATURES
Adding a New user
The “Add User” function is the first that appears after logging into the script. You just need to supply a username and password then click “Add User”. All the other fields are optional. Even the password field can be left blank and the program will pick one at random. You can also supply the member’s name, e-mail address and a short comments field. If you check the box “Check to email new entry to user”, this will tell the program to send out an email with pre-configured text welcoming the user as a new member to your password protected area. If you do check this box, then you can also provide additional text in the large “Extra E-mail Text” box which will be passed along in the email sent out.
You can now add an expiration date for the user, enter it in the format YYYYMMDD (20030631 for example). The script does not automatically delete users but you have the option of sorting your user list by expiration date. This field is optional and you do not have to enter an expiration date.
View, Modify and Delete Users
The “List User” screen does three things, it provides a list of all your members, allows you to delete a member and modify any information for a particular member. The user list shows “Username – Member Name – Email address – comments”. You can easily control the size of this box by changing the scrollsize option in the program settings. To delete a user all you have to do is highlight then click the delete button. To Modify a user, you also highlight the record then you can modify the password, name, email and comments field. You can even check the box to resend their confirmation email. If one of your members forgets their password, you just come to this screen, highlight them, enter a new password, check the “e-mail” box and click “Modify User”.
Sort By Expiration : Will sort all of your members by expiration date in ascending order.
Sort by username : Sorts the list by username (the default view)
Keyword Search : Will search the username, name, email, comments and expiration field for whatever you type in
Change Directory
“Change Protected Directory” screen allows you to manage password protection on another folder. This also makes it easier than going back to the login screen. This screen displays the path you have setup where your password protected directories will be located. You just type in the new folder name and click “Change Directory”. This way you can use the script to manage as many password protected folders as you like. If you are protecting a folder within another folder then you type in for example : member_area/secure1 and then the script will manage the “secure1″ folder located in the “member_area” folder. You will also find two additional buttons on this screen. One is to view the .htaccess file and the other for the .htpasswd file. This is a good thing to do every now and then so you can make backups of your member database.
Generate .htaccess File
When you first setup password protection on a folder, you need to create a .htaccess file inside it. You can either do this manually or have the script create this file for you. You do not need to do this every time you add a user. Once a .htaccess file has been created in a folder, you don’t need to run this function again. The Directory field will display the folder name you are about to generate a .htaccess file for. The Realm is for the message that will be displayed in the pop-up box that appears when a user tries to login to your secure area. If you want the script to create the file, then check the “Create .htaccess file on Server”. As for the format you want, the majority of unix servers use “.htaccess file for apache” Some web hosting companies use Cobalt RAQ or Zeus.
Password Retrieval (Version 3.2+)
You can now have your members generate new passwords for themselves if they forget their login information. To activate this feature in the script, send your users to :
http://www.yourdomain.com/admin.cgi?action=F&targetdir=dirname
Where “dirname” is the name of the directory you are protecting (same directory you type in when accessing admin.cgi)
If a member forgets their username, they just type in their email address and it will be sent to them. If they forget their password, they just type in their e-mail and username then a new password will be generated.
Version 3.3 just added the option for users to select their own new password if they supply their username and their old password.
Extract E-mails
Extract E-mails allows you to export a list of all your members’ email addresses. The list will be formatted one email address per line. Some email programs require that each address have a comma after it which you can select when exporting. The addresses will appear on the next page which you can then copy/paste into Eudora/Outlook etc.
Mass E-mails (Version 3.2+)
Allows you to send a broadcast email message to all members. E-mails can be configured to send specific information about each user using the %tag%.
Example : Hello %name%,
Your userid is : %username%
Your email is : %email%
Your account expires on : %expiration%
Comments about your account : %comments%
Manual Import
If you have a large list of usernames that you want to add as members in just one click then the Manual Import feature will handle this. All you do is copy/paste or type the list into the large text box. Here is a sample of what the list would look like :
username,password
joe,joe123
jack,jack887
jane,janepass
You can also import the additional fields :
username, password, name, email, comments, expiration
joe,joe123,Joe Smith,joe@smith.com,friend
jack,jack887,Jack Smith,jack@smith.com,
Also, you can even leave the password field blank to have the script automatically generate it for you :
joe,,Joe Smith,joe@smith.com
jack,,Jack Smith,jack@smith.com
(note the two commas after eachother)
You can also automatically send an email to each member that you import by checking the “Send E-mail” box. Even the comments field can be sent if you wish.
Whenever you run the import, the script will always check to make sure that the username doesn’t already exits. If any username in your list exists, no records will be imported.
Import From File
The import from file feature is if you have a list of members too large to fit in the manual import box or maybe you have another program that exports the list of usernames/passwords to a file that need to be imported later. By default, the name of the file that the program looks for is called htimport.txt and will be located in the directory you are protecting. The format for records to be imported is the same as the manual import :
username,password
or
username,password,name,email,comments, expiration
or
username,,name,email,comments
Whenever you run the import, the script will always check to make sure that the username doesn’t already exits. If any username in your list exists, no records will be imported.
Change Program Settings
This screen allows you to update configurations in the program without having to manually edit the admin.cgi script. The settings you can change are :
Base directory : The physical server path to where your protected folder or folders are located. (Not to be confused with the URL or domain name to your web site). example : /www/yourdomain/htdocs/
Password : The master password to access the admin.cgi script with.
Sendmail : The path to sendmail for your server.
Scroll Size : The number of members that will be displayed in the “List Users” screen before it scrolls.
Email From : Your e-mail address goes here. This is also the address used when sending email confirmations to your new members, they will see this in the From field. You can also add your name in parenthesis : joe@smith.com (Joe Smith)
Email Subject : The subject of the emails which are sent out to new members.
Top of Email : The text that will appear in the email sent to users. After this text will come the username and password.
Bottom of Email : The text that will appear after the username/password and the end of the email.
The data for all these variables is stored in a file called adminvars.cgi
You do not need to create this file on the server. If the file is not there it will be created with default settings. If for some reason your script does not have permission to create the file, you may need to upload a blank one and chmod it to 777. The default admin password is test.
FAQ
Does my server support .htaccess ?
In the majority of cases, if it’s unix and runs the apache server then yes. The best way to find out is by uploading a .htaccess file to a subdirectory on your server then access it with your browser and see if it asks you for a login.
- Here’s one you can use on your site : .htaccess upload this file to a directory on your server (in ASCII mode), example : yourdomain.com/members/ then rename it to .htaccess (yes, that’s a period infront of “htaccess”)
- Then using your browser, go to http://www.yourdomain.com/members/ If you’re prompted to enter a username and password, then it will work!
After a member enters their username/password to the protected directory, do they need to re-enter it each time they access a new file ?
No, the way .htaccess works, is it protects all files in the directory it is in. So once a user is authenticated, they have access to everything in that folder. But if a user bookmarks a page in the secure area, they will be required to re-enter the user/pass if they shut down their web browser and restart.
Can I protect multiple directories with the same list of users ?
Yes, in this case, you would have the admin.cgi script only manage one of the directories for you, then all you would need to do is copy the same .htaccess file over to the new directory you want to protect. If you look in the .htaccess file, it says right there the full path to the .htpasswd file it will look for to authenticate users AuthUserFile /home/secure/.htpasswd.
Can I protect multiple directories with a different list of users ?
Yes, in this case, you just run the admin.cgi script and tell it to refresh to a new directory to access that list of users. By doing this, each directory will have its own .htpasswd and .htaccess file.
Will this work with Frontpage Extensions ?
Yes, 90% of the time it will. Just as long as the directory you are protecting is setup as a regular directory in frontpage and not a “subweb”. The idea is to tell Frontpage not to overwrite the .htaccess file that admin.cgi creates
Can the script automatically send passwords to users who forget their login ?
Yes, this feature is available as of version 3.2. Just provide a link for your members to admin.cgi?action=F&targetdir=dirname. They just have to supply their e-mail address and username then the script will generate a new password and e-mail it to them.
How do I configure the e-mail that is sent to members ?
When you add a new user, you have the option of sending them an e-mail with their new username/password (saves you the time of having to do it manually each time). You can configure the subject of the emails, the sender’s name and e-mail address (you) and the text in the body of the email. These settings can be changed by logging into admin.cgi and scrolling down to the section labeled “Change Program Settings”. You can read about this in the Features page.
How do I add a long list of users at once (instead of adding them one at a time) ?
This is what the Manual Import feature does. After running the script, scroll down to “Manual Import” and you’ll see a large TEXT box, this is where you can copy/paste your list of users. See the Features page.
Will this script work on NT server ?
No.
I don’t know anything about CGI, chmod etc. can I still use it ?
Not a problem, we’ll install the script for you. When you place your order, be sure to provide your URL (http://….) ftp username and password. Almost all installs are completed the same day you place your order.
What if the program does not run on my server, is there a refund ?
We will not charge your credit card until the program works successfully on your web hosting account/server. Credit cards are usually processed a few days after you submit your order.
