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How to password protect your WordPress site using Basic Authentication
How to password protect your WordPress site using Basic Authentication

Quickly setup a password protection authentication mechanism

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Written by Admin account
Updated over a week ago

You can easily restrict access to your website by setting up password protection with the HTTP "Basic" Authentication method. When password protection is enabled, users will be prompted to enter a username and password in order to access your website. A common case for using this, is to protect your website during development.

Using the Pressidium Dashboard

  1. Navigate to the website overview screen by selecting / clicking on the related card in the Websites overview screen. Tip: You can quickly navigate to a website by using the S keyboard shortcut to bring up the quick search dialog.

  2. Navigate to the desired environment, Production or Staging.

  3. Click on the Settings menu.

  4. Switch ON password protection in the Password Protection section. A modal will appear to enter the desired username and password. Choose a strong password, at least 8 characters long, mixing a combination of characters, numbers and special symbols. You can use the password generator button to create a strong, random password.

  5. Click Enable to activate password protection on the selected environment. A background operation to setup authentication is triggered. When the operation is completed a notification will be displayed in the sidebar Notifications panel.

  1. Browse to your website and ensure that password protection is active. You should be presented with an authentication pop-up window requiring a username and password.

  2. Enter the credentials you setup on step 3 to access your website

You can disable password protection at any time by:

  • Switching OFF password protection in the related section.

  • Confirming de activation by clicking on Disable.

You will need to re enter the desired credentials if you again decide to enable the feature at a later time.

To update the credentials (username & password) required to access your website:

  1. Click Edit Credentials.

  2. Provide the new Username and Password.

  3. Click Change to apply changes. The update will take effect as soon as the background operation finishes.

Considerations:

The following should be taken into account when setting up password protection via basic authentication:

  • The password may be cached by the user's web browser, and it can be permanently stored by the user's web browser.

  • Basic Authentication method credentials are transferred as encoded plain text over the network so it is strongly advised to be used in conjunction with SSL. You can effortlessly add a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate to your website by following our related guide.

  • Caching is disabled for any websites that use the password protection mechanism.

Related resources:

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