Security and your website

By RICHARD WOOD

I make no guarantees about any methods of securing your web site. But if you have information you don't want everyone to see you will want basic security, at least.

That means handing out passwords to the people you want to use your site.

The way you do it will depend on the operating system that your internet provider or hosting service is using.

For a Windows-based hosting service you will normally ask the site administrator at your hosting service to set up passwords for you for any folders you require. Some Windows and some Linux hosting services provide software "control panels" so you can do this procedure yourself.

For other Linux-based services you may need to learn about a system called .htaccess.

For services that use the Apache server system you set up files named .htaccess that define the security of folders they are placed within.

One of the commands will point to another file called .htpassword. Within that file you put all the names and encrypted passwords that are allowed access.

To get passwords encrypted simply find one of the many sites on the internet that will generate a random looking sequence of characters for you.

Put "htpassword" into a search engine and choose one. You will also need to search on "htaccess" and read some tutorials on which commands you need to include in the .htaccess files and which folder the .htpassword file needs to be placed in for maximum security.