I have a bbpress forum installed and I am extremely excited by the way it’s working. However:

The group I made this forum for is selected, around a 100 students and around 50 to be added every year.

How do I make this forum password protected so no one else can even read it?

I would like them to be able to use the same address as is used now, but with a pop-up that needs them to type the password. Which can be something like “blablahello” and it forwards them to the forum. (The same password for everyone).

Is there something I can add in the index.php to make this happen?

Thanks for anyone who knows how to solve this.

[@forgeron Member 17 years, 9 months ago]

If I delete index.php I can still access all topics by typing their specific URL. (And I guess google can still index them)

So I guess password protecting just index.php is not sufficient..

[@wittmania Member 17 years, 9 months ago]

Try the Forum Restriction plugin:

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/27

or maybe the Force Login plugin:

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/34

I haven’t used the Forum Restriction one, but from the description it sounds like you can set up forums that will only allow the users you specify to view/post in whichever forums you restrict. This would also allow you to have a “public” area where prospective users/students/whatever could browse around. The only downside would be that you would have to manually add users to the “whitelist” each time someone registers. Still, it is a pretty simple way to accomplish what you’re looking for.

If you use Force Login, it will at least require that a person be registered and logged in in order to view your content. Since anyone can register, your content would be public to that extent. Good news, though, is that you don’t have to add users to the whitelist. Bad news is that ongoing administration would include deleting unauthorized users whenever they register.

Plan A means plenty of admin up front (and each cycle) to set up authorized users. Plan B means ongoing (and variable) admin to get rid of unauthorized users if/when they register.

Good luck!

[@forgeron Member 17 years, 9 months ago]

Thanks for the tip!

Both seem flawless, but a lot of work on the other hand. I decided to use this: http://www.zubrag.com/scripts/password-protect.php

It’s not a plugin, but it blocks acces to the index.php and forum.php. The topics can still be read by anyone who knows the URL, but I used a robots.txt to make sure the site will NOT be indexed by google or any other search engine.

So I guess I’m more or less safe. But it isn’t all that super secure. Hopefully there will be a similar plugin for this once.