Keeping your premium or sensitive content locked behind a password form is a necessity for certain types of content. It allows you to restrict access to only those who have the password, meaning that you can pick and choose who sees it – it’s great for membership websites, or for protecting your website before it’s ready for launch.
We’re going to take a look at how you can quickly protect a WordPress page on your website using PHP, and then check out a much easier method that may make more sense if you’re not adept at coding.
- Password Protect WordPress Pages Using PHP Codes
- Reset Passwords Using PHP
- Password Protect WordPress Pages Using PPWP Plugin
Password Protect WordPress Pages Using PHP Codes
Though simple enough, this method requires you to go through 2 steps to password-protect WordPress pages. It’s important to note that this workaround is applicable to single pages only. If you’re looking for an easy way to protect your entire site or partial content, it’s better to use the PPWP plugin instead.
Step 1: Create a PHP File and Define Markup
First, you need to make a PHP file and save it under the name password.php.
<?php
session_start();
if(isset($_POST['submit_pass']) && $_POST['pass'])
{
$pass=$_POST['pass'];
if($pass=="123")
{
$_SESSION['password']=$pass;
}
else
{
$error="Incorrect Password";
}
}
if(isset($_POST['page_logout']))
{
unset($_SESSION['password']);
}
?>
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="password_style.css">
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<?php
if($_SESSION['password']=="123")
{
?>
<h1>Create Password Protected Webpage Using PHP, HTML And CSS</h1>
<form method="post" action="" id="logout_form">
<input type="submit" name="page_logout" value="LOGOUT">
</form>
<?php
}
else
{
?>
<form method="post" action="" id="login_form">
<h1>LOGIN TO PROCEED</h1>
<input type="password" name="pass" placeholder="*******">
<input type="submit" name="submit_pass" value="DO SUBMIT">
<p>"Password : 123"</p>
<p><font style="color:red;"><?php echo $error;?></font></p>
</form>
<?php
}
?>
</div>
</body>
</html>The code above will check the user’s status, i.e. whether they are logged in or not. The password form is only shown to users who aren’t logged in yet. In the case of logged-in users, the content will be displayed with a logout button.
Step 2: Create a CSS File and Define Styling
If you want to customize the password form, simply create a CSS file and save it with the name password_style.css.
Below is a sample code:
body
{
margin:0 auto;
padding:0px;
text-align:center;
width:100%;
font-family: "Myriad Pro","Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,Sans-Serif;
background-color:#8A4B08;
}
#wrapper
{
margin:0 auto;
padding:0px;
text-align:center;
width:995px;
}
#wrapper h1
{
margin-top:50px;
font-size:45px;
color:white;
}
#wrapper p
{
font-size:16px;
}
#logout_form input[type="submit"]
{
width:250px;
margin-top:10px;
height:40px;
font-size:16px;
background:none;
border:2px solid white;
color:white;
}
#login_form
{
margin-top:200px;
background-color:white;
width:350px;
margin-left:310px;
padding:20px;
box-sizing:border-box;
box-shadow:0px 0px 10px 0px #3B240B;
}
#login_form h1
{
margin:0px;
font-size:25px;
color:#8A4B08;
}
#login_form input[type="password"]
{
width:250px;
margin-top:10px;
height:40px;
padding-left:10px;
font-size:16px;
}
#login_form input[type="submit"]
{
width:250px;
margin-top:10px;
height:40px;
font-size:16px;
background-color:#8A4B08;
border:none;
box-shadow:0px 4px 0px 0px #61380B;
color:white;
border-radius:3px;
}
#login_form p
{
margin:0px;
margin-top:15px;
color:#8A4B08;
font-size:17px;
font-weight:bold;
}After doing this, you should find that your page is successfully protected with a password form. Now, let’s move on to the next section, where we’ll guide you on how to enable the reset password function.
Reset Passwords Using PHP
The password reset function is an essential feature of any website whose content is password-protected. In case users forget their passwords and cannot log in, this function allows them to reset the passwords themselves.
And, the good news is that you can absolutely enable this feature with PHP codes too. To do that, simply follow the steps below.
Step 1: Define Markup for Password Reset System
Firstly, you need to create an HTML file with the following codes and save it under the name reset_pass.html. This file is used to create a password reset form in which users can enter their registered emails.
<html>
<body>
<form method="post" action="send_link.php">
<p>Enter Email Address To Send Password Link</p>
<input type="text" name="email">
<input type="submit" name="submit_email">
</form>
</body>
</html>Step 2: Make a PHP File to Send the Reset Password Links.
Once users enter their emails in the created form in step 1, we’ll check if they exist in the database. If they do, we need to send reset password links to their registered emails.
To enable this function, simply set up a PHP file and save it with the name send_link.php.
<?php
if(isset($_POST['submit_email']) && $_POST['email'])
{
mysql_connect('localhost','root','');
mysql_select_db('sample');
$select=mysql_query("select email,password from user where email='$email'");
if(mysql_num_rows($select)==1)
{
while($row=mysql_fetch_array($select))
{
$email=md5($row['email']);
$pass=md5($row['password']);
}
$link="<a href='www.samplewebsite.com/reset.php?key=".$email."&reset=".$pass."'>Click To Reset password</a>";
require_once('phpmail/PHPMailerAutoload.php');
$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->CharSet = "utf-8";
$mail->IsSMTP();
// enable SMTP authentication
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
// GMAIL username
$mail->Username = "your_email_id@gmail.com";
// GMAIL password
$mail->Password = "your_gmail_password";
$mail->SMTPSecure = "ssl";
// sets GMAIL as the SMTP server
$mail->Host = "smtp.gmail.com";
// set the SMTP port for the GMAIL server
$mail->Port = "465";
$mail->From='your_gmail_id@gmail.com';
$mail->FromName='your_name';
$mail->AddAddress('reciever_email_id', 'reciever_name');
$mail->Subject = 'Reset Password';
$mail->IsHTML(true);
$mail->Body = 'Click On This Link to Reset Password '.$pass.'';
if($mail->Send())
{
echo "Check Your Email and Click on the link sent to your email";
}
else
{
echo "Mail Error - >".$mail->ErrorInfo;
}
}
}
?>Step 3: Make a PHP File to Reset Passwords
Next, let’s create a form where users can enter their new passwords. To do that, you just need to make a PHP file and save it with the name reset_pass.php.
<?php
if($_GET['key'] && $_GET['reset'])
{
$email=$_GET['key'];
$pass=$_GET['reset'];
mysql_connect('localhost','root','');
mysql_select_db('sample');
$select=mysql_query("select email,password from user where md5(email)='$email' and md5(password)='$pass'");
if(mysql_num_rows($select)==1)
{
?>
<form method="post" action="submit_new.php">
<input type="hidden" name="email" value="<?php echo $email;?>">
<p>Enter New password</p>
<input type="password" name='password'>
<input type="submit" name="submit_password">
</form>
<?php
}
}
?>Step 4: Make a PHP File to Update New Passwords
In this final step, we get the new passwords and update them in the database. To run the function, simply make a PHP file and save it with the name submit_new.php.
<?php
if(isset($_POST['submit_password']) && $_POST['key'] && $_POST['reset'])
{
$email=$_POST['email'];
$pass=$_POST['password'];
mysql_connect('localhost','root','');
mysql_select_db('sample');
$select=mysql_query("update user set password='$pass' where email='$email'");
}
?>With all of the above, you have all PHP codes needed to protect your page with passwords, as well as the ability to reset passwords in the frontend. However, manually adding these PHP codes yourself can take a while, but fortunately, there is an easier way.
Password Protect WordPress Pages Using PPWP Plugin
While the above codes can quickly make your page private, it’s not the best option if you want to make your whole website private. WordPress users will be able to make use of the platforms plugins to enable protected content on their website, and among password-protect plugins, our PPWP plugin stands out as the best with more than 30,000 active installations.
PPWP has a user-friendly UI that helps protect your content effectively without having to touch a line of code. You can easily create a single protected page, whether that’s a post, category or your entire website. You can easily download and install PPWP in the WordPress plugin directory.
To do that, navigate to Plugins > Add New in your admin dashboard. Here, search for the Password Protect WordPress plugin then click Install and Activate to start using it. Once you have the PPWP plugin installed, simply follow our instructions below to protect your content.
Password Protect Single Pages
Step 1: Go to Pages or Posts sections in your admin dashboard. Here, you’ll see a new Password Protection column.
Step 2: Click Password protect and then Password protect this page under the popup to protect your private content. Our plugin will auto-generate a new password accordingly.
You can protect as many pages as you want with the same process you can do this manually with other pages, or protect your whole site quickly if needs be too.
Password Protect Entire Site
Step 1: Navigate to the Password Protect WordPress > Sitewide Protection submenu from your admin dashboard.
Step 2: Enable the Password Protect Entire Site option. Next, you’ll see a text area allowing you to input one password to secure your site.
If you want to protect your site with multiple passwords, consider upgrading to PPWP Pro. With PPWP, each password is spaceless and limited to 100 characters, and blank lines will be removed automatically.
After saving the passwords you want, go to any page on your website and you will see a password login form as the image below:
Password Protect Partial Content
The PPWP plugin provides you with simple shortcodes to lock any section within your pages or posts. To secure a content section, simply wrap it with the shortcode below:
[ppwp passwords= "password1 password2"] Your content [/ppwp]
Once saved, your content will look like this:
As mentioned, this is a much simpler method if you want to protect your whole website, have multiple passwords for different users with different levels of access, and a whole host of other advanced features.
Which method do you prefer?
We’ve shown you 2 methods to protect your WordPress content with passwords. While some may be able to use the PHP script to password protect a single page, for most users a plugin like PPWP will be a better option, especially if you want coverage for one or multiple websites.
