Easy way to password-protect php page

Question

I have a page I want to password-protect. I've tried doing HTTP authentication, but for some reason it doesn't work on my hosting. Any other quick (and easy) way to do this? Thanks!

Answer 1

Not exactly the most robust password protection here, so please don't use this to protect credit card numbers or something very important.

Simply drop all of the following code into a file called (secure.php), change the user and pass from "admin" to whatever you want. Then right under those lines where it says include("secure.html"), simply replace that with the filename you want them to be able to see.

They will access this page at [YouDomain.com/secure.php] and then the PHP script will internally include the file you want password protected so they won't know the name of that file, and can't later just access it directly bypassing the password prompt.

If you would like to add a further level of protection, I would recommend you take your (secure.html) file outside of your site's root folder [/public_html], and place it on the same level as that directory, so that it is not inside the directory. Then in the PHP script where you are including the file simply use ("../secure.html"). That (../) means go back a directory to find the file. Doing it this way, the only way someone can access the content that's on the (secure.html) page is through the (secure.php) script.

<?php
$user = $_POST['user'];
$pass = $_POST['pass'];

if($user == "admin"
&& $pass == "admin")
{
        include("secure.html");
}
else
{
    if(isset($_POST))
    {?>

            <form method="POST" action="secure.php">
            User <input type="text" name="user"></input><br/>
            Pass <input type="password" name="pass"></input><br/>
            <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Go"></input>
            </form>
    <?}
}
?>

Answer 2

This is a bit late but I wanted to reply in case anyone else came upon this page and found that the highest reply was a bit off. I have improved upon the system just a tad bit. Note, it is still not amazingly secure but it is an improvement.

First prepare your password salts file:

hash_generate.php:

 <?php

 $user = "Username"; // please replace with your user
 $pass = "Password"; // please replace with your passwd
 // two ; was missing

 $useroptions = ['cost' => 8,];
 $userhash    = password_hash($user, PASSWORD_BCRYPT, $useroptions);
 $pwoptions   = ['cost' => 8,];
 $passhash    = password_hash($pass, PASSWORD_BCRYPT, $pwoptions);

 echo $userhash;
 echo "<br />";
 echo $passhash;

 ?>

Take your output $userhash and $passhash and put them in two text files: user.txt and pass.txt, respectively. Others have suggested putting these text files away above public_html, this is a good idea but I just used .htaccess and stored them in a folder called "stuff"

.htaccess

 deny from all

Now no one can peek into the hash. Next up is your index.php:

index.php:

<?php
$user = ""; //prevent the "no index" error from $_POST
$pass = "";
if (isset($_POST['user'])) { // check for them and set them so
    $user = $_POST['user'];
}
if (isset($_POST['pass'])) { // so that they don't return errors
    $pass = $_POST['pass'];
}    

$useroptions = ['cost' => 8,]; // all up to you
$pwoptions   = ['cost' => 8,]; // all up to you
$userhash    = password_hash($user, PASSWORD_BCRYPT, $useroptions); // hash entered user
$passhash    = password_hash($pass, PASSWORD_BCRYPT, $pwoptions);  // hash entered pw
$hasheduser  = file_get_contents("stuff/user.txt"); // this is our stored user
$hashedpass  = file_get_contents("stuff/pass.txt"); // and our stored password


if ((password_verify($user, $hasheduser)) && (password_verify($pass,$hashedpass))) {

    // the password verify is how we actually login here
    // the $userhash and $passhash are the hashed user-entered credentials
    // password verify now compares our stored user and pw with entered user and pw

    include "pass-protected.php";

} else { 
    // if it was invalid it'll just display the form, if there was never a $_POST
    // then it'll also display the form. that's why I set $user to "" instead of a $_POST
    // this is the right place for comments, not inside html
    ?>  
    <form method="POST" action="index.php">
    User <input type="text" name="user"></input><br/>
    Pass <input type="password" name="pass"></input><br/>
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Go"></input>
    </form>
    <?php 
}