Password protect a Wordpress site

August 6, 2010 12:20 PM

I'm creating a wedding website using Wordpress. I'd like to have the whole thing behind a password.

This would be one password that everyone must type to get in. So I envision the first page just has the couple's names and the password box with the hint ("type in the date of the wedding"). It clearly doesn't have to be super high security, but just enough to keep random nosy folks out.

Searching online brings up so many possibilities, I'm not sure which is best. I know I don't want to use htaccess and have the pop-up (for lack of a better term) window that asks for a password. I'd rather it look/act cleaner than that.

Also, this is not on the Wordpress servers, but on a hosting account I have.

posted by jdl to computers & internet (5 answers total)

this might be what you're looking for: Members Only
posted by pyro979 at 12:30 PM on August 6, 2010

Members Only will work well, it will only show the WordPress login screen to non-logged-in folks. I expect creating a single "Subscriber" level user with a username that's the same thing as the username and password would work. You could also use BM Custom Login to customize the look of the login screen. Now, if you're going to allow comments or the like, remember that everyone will be the same. :-\

I use basically those two plugins together for a family-only website.

Now, another approach might be to password protect all the posts, and try this plugin Password Protect All Posts.
posted by artlung at 12:37 PM on August 6, 2010

Thanks to you both! Looks like Members Only will do what I need.
posted by jdl at 12:49 PM on August 6, 2010

What version of Wordpress? I've had problems (as in, it failing to work when it said it was) with Members Only with v3 and up.
posted by Solomon at 2:32 PM on August 6, 2010

Solomon, I've been using Members Only since 2.5 through 2.9.2 and 3.0 and now 3.0.1 and it works great.
posted by artlung at 2:37 PM on August 6, 2010