Password Protect Site?

New Member Joined: May 08, 2006 Posts: 4

Hello.

Is it possible to only allow registered users to access a RavenNuke 2.02.00 site?

Can new users be screened/approved by the admin prior to allowing their registration to be activated?

Thanks!
DBZ

Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 9:36 pm

Effectively you can do the first by restricting access to modules to registered users. Just go into administration / modules and edit each one and restrict the access appropriately. I don't know of a site wide way of doing this but this option gives you more "granularity" anyway.

There is a separate Approve Membership module which is very good software and well supported (in my opinion) but unfortunately it changes some of the main Nuke programs and tables and therefore is a p.i.t.a. to maintain as you do upgrades. Especially it has "hooks" into some of the Forums programs and so when Forums upgrades come you sit there trying to reconcile them with Approve Membership. I don't know of any simpler way to have administrative control of new users though.

registered · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 5:40 am

Just another possibility, one that I am using on a site. (I have the same issue that fkelly has mentioned in that although I love the Approve Membership module and have used it for years, I just do not have time anymore to keep incorporating it when I upgrade.)

What I do is set all my modules up for Groups Only access and have one or more groups (Edit Groups) set up for various things. Then, although anyone can register to their hearts content, I pick and choose who gets what access based on whether I know them or not. Wink

Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 7:28 pm

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

What I did was change all of the modules and blocks so that they are visible to registered users only. I also set the membership approval to admin.

I also set the Your Account module to be the home page. My only problem now is that when a user logs in, the go directly to the Your Account page, which I guess is what I told it to do. Rolling Eyes

What I really want is to force users to log into the site and once they do so, be directed to the news module.

Thanks,
DBZ

Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 9:23 pm

Hhmmm... I see your dilema. An interesting application and solution. How about putting something like the Content module as Home and use a center block (HTML ones) with the text you want to show on your home page and then do as you say with the News module. You need some module to be "Home" other than the YA module (I think)... sorry, never done this before so you'll have to try a few alternatives.

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 7:35 pm

Thanks for the ideas. Looks like I'll have to experiment. I'll post my solution once I figure it out. Very Happy

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 2:06 am

If I remember rightly Nuke is setup to automatically forward you to the YA module on logging in.

I wanted to do a similar thing on one of my sites, but I'll have to check what I changed to do it and I'll let you know.

Also if you've got News set as your home, this will always appear even if you've got it set to registered users only. Again there is a where around, but I will need to check what I have done.
Do you want unregistered users to be able to view the news?

Neil Smile

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 4:29 am

Thanks jakec,

Because the site is for a youth group, I need to lock it down so only registered users can see any of the content. I'd like to use the news as a way of posting upcoming events, etc. so we do not want unregistered users to know when events are being held for our kids. I know it sounds paranoid, but you know how it is out there in the wild, wild net...

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 4:03 pm

OK this is what I did on my site.

Go to Your_Account under modules and open index.php.

Find:

Code:

   if (empty($redirect)) {


            Header("Location: modules.php?name=Your_Account&op=userinfo&bypass=1&username=$username");

and replace with:

Code:

      if (empty($redirect)) {


         Header("Location: index.php");

This should redirect users to your homepage when they log in and if News is set to display in your home that should be displayed.

I'm still looking into Part 2 of your question, I'm having a few problems with my router tonight so it's taking me longer than expected.

Jakec

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 6:19 pm

I'm just thinking ... yes, when someone logins in they get directed to YA. But after they login once most browsers seem to remember that and interact with the web page behind the scenes (I have to admit I don't understand the exact mechanism) and they come into your home page as if they were already logged in. So, if you did what Montego suggested a few posts back, or even wrote a custom "home" module, I'm not sure this would be a problem that a lot of them would see.

Depending on how far out you are posting events and how many you want to post I've found that the news module can be limited. This is because by the time the event becomes "current" it may have scrolled off into old articles land. There's both free and slightly commercial ($35) calendar software out there that might help you but I'll leave it to you to run a search if it's of any interest.

Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 10:41 am

fkelly is right, it depends how many events your going to post.

I use Kalender MX and this allows you to post a news article as well when submitting an event. Like fkelly said if you do a search you will see loads of posts debating the pros and cons of each calender.

Jakec Very Happy

New Member Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 4

I am not using a calendar but I have CZnews as home on my site. Everything else is for registered users only.

Unregistered users will see the title of the news article (and recent forum posts) but when they click the "restricted area" message is displayed and the contents of the story cannot be read.

Am I correct in thinking this greatly increases security because the only "Public" forms are the login and register forms?

Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 7:49 am

As long as you have control over who registers this is true. If you have some kind of validation of who potential registrants are before they get in then yes. If they just fill out a form to get an email activation link and there is no intervention by an admin then it really doesn't add much. Unfortunately Approve Membership doesn't come built into the normal Nuke distributions and it can be a pain to maintain as you upgrade Nuke versions (and especially do Forum upgrades) but without something like it just restricting modules to registered users will not deter determined miscreants.