Easy way to password-protect php page

Question

I have a page I want to password-protect. I've tried doing HTTP authentication, but for some reason it doesn't work on my hosting. Any other quick (and easy) way to do this? Thanks!

Answer 1

Not exactly the most robust password protection here, so please don't use this to protect credit card numbers or something very important.

Simply drop all of the following code into a file called (secure.php), change the user and pass from "admin" to whatever you want. Then right under those lines where it says include("secure.html"), simply replace that with the filename you want them to be able to see.

They will access this page at [YouDomain.com/secure.php] and then the PHP script will internally include the file you want password protected so they won't know the name of that file, and can't later just access it directly bypassing the password prompt.

If you would like to add a further level of protection, I would recommend you take your (secure.html) file outside of your site's root folder [/public_html], and place it on the same level as that directory, so that it is not inside the directory. Then in the PHP script where you are including the file simply use ("../secure.html"). That (../) means go back a directory to find the file. Doing it this way, the only way someone can access the content that's on the (secure.html) page is through the (secure.php) script.

<?php
$user = $_POST['user'];
$pass = $_POST['pass'];

if($user == "admin"
&& $pass == "admin")
{
        include("secure.html");
}
else
{
    if(isset($_POST))
    {?>

            <form method="POST" action="secure.php">
            User <input type="text" name="user"></input><br/>
            Pass <input type="password" name="pass"></input><br/>
            <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Go"></input>
            </form>
    <?}
}
?>