Password lock an Able Gold site
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 4:32 am
When I work on more complex AbleCommerce projects, it's often helpful to set up a staging site that is separate from the live site. This happens most often when preparing to upgrade a 7.x to Gold. But it's also beneficial when you have a lot of development work going on and you want the client to be able to review the changes prior to pushing them to the live website.
The AbleCommerce maintenance feature for closing the store works well if you have credentials, but it completely prevents any sort of anonymous site testing.
Having a public url staging site vastly improves project efficiency. But there is a substantial risk that a spider or bot will eventually index the staging site and create conflicting search results with the live site. This can have a dramatic impact on the live site SEO results. In short, very bad things can happen.
Normally, I would lock down the staging site by IP address. But this isn't always feasible for remote testers or clients using dynamic IP address internet connections.
My solution was to create a simple password page that fires only if a certain cookie does not exist in the client browser. The password page will render even if you try to hit the admin pages. Thus the entire site is protected from spiders and bots while actual users can easily continue testing and reviewing my work.
Here's how it works:
First, edit the global.asax file in the root of the site. Find the Application_BeginRequest() routine, it should be near the top. Locate this code in the routine:
and replace it with this code:
NOTE: You must replace the 'test.<yoursite>.com' with the actual url of your staging site. In my projects, I often use the hostname of test as the staging site i.e. test.solunar.com is staging for http://www.solunar.com.
Now you need the login page. So create a new file called 'TesterLogin.aspx' and copy/paste this code into it:
Save the file.
Now create a file called TesterLogin.aspx.cs and copy/paste this code into it:
Feel free to change the password 'ablemods2015' to anything you like. Save the file.
Now upload the two TesterLogin files to the root of your staging site.
You're all set! Hit the site url with your browser and you'll get nothing more than a question that wants an answer. Enter the correct response and you'll be redirected to the home page while your browser gets a 7-day cookie. For the next calendar week, you'll automatically bypass the question. Safe from indexing, Easy to remember for testers.
Enjoy
The AbleCommerce maintenance feature for closing the store works well if you have credentials, but it completely prevents any sort of anonymous site testing.
Having a public url staging site vastly improves project efficiency. But there is a substantial risk that a spider or bot will eventually index the staging site and create conflicting search results with the live site. This can have a dramatic impact on the live site SEO results. In short, very bad things can happen.
Normally, I would lock down the staging site by IP address. But this isn't always feasible for remote testers or clients using dynamic IP address internet connections.
My solution was to create a simple password page that fires only if a certain cookie does not exist in the client browser. The password page will render even if you try to hit the admin pages. Thus the entire site is protected from spiders and bots while actual users can easily continue testing and reviewing my work.
Here's how it works:
First, edit the global.asax file in the root of the site. Find the Application_BeginRequest() routine, it should be near the top. Locate this code in the routine:
Code: Select all
Response.Redirect(url);
}
Code: Select all
Response.Redirect(url);
}
// BEGIN MOD: AbleMods.com
// DATE: 11/04/2015
// if we're running on test site, check for tester cookie
string origUrl = Request.Url.Host.ToLowerInvariant();
if (origUrl.Contains("test.<yoursite>.com"))
{
// see if user has our magic cookie
HttpCookie cookie = Request.Cookies["Tester"];
if (cookie == null && !Request.RawUrl.Contains("Tester"))
{
// need to force custom login page
Response.Redirect("~/TesterLogin.aspx");
}
}
// END MOD: AbleMods.com
Now you need the login page. So create a new file called 'TesterLogin.aspx' and copy/paste this code into it:
Code: Select all
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="TesterLogin.aspx.cs" Inherits="AbleCommerce.TesterLogin" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
<title>Store Is Closed</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="outerPageContainer" class="contentOnlyLayout">
<div id="innerPageContainer" class="contentOnlyLayout">
<div id="mainColumn" class="contentOnlyLayout">
<div class="zone">
<div id="storeClosed" class="mainContentWrapper">
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div class="section">
<div class="pageHeader">
</div>
<div class="content">
<h1>WHAT is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?</h1>
<asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txt_Speed"/><asp:Button runat="server" ID="btn_Submit" Text="Submit" OnClick="btn_Submit_OnClick"/>
</div>
</div>
</form>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Now create a file called TesterLogin.aspx.cs and copy/paste this code into it:
Code: Select all
using System;
using System.Web;
using CommerceBuilder.Utility;
namespace AbleCommerce
{
public partial class TesterLogin : CommerceBuilder.UI.AbleCommercePage
{
protected void Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
}
protected void btn_Submit_OnClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// test value
if (txt_Speed.Text == "ablemods2015")
{
//create a cookie
HttpCookie myCookie = new HttpCookie("Tester");
//Add key-values in the cookie
myCookie.Values.Add("StartDate", LocaleHelper.LocalNow.ToString());
//set cookie expiry date-time. Made it to last for next 12 hours.
myCookie.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddDays(7);
//Most important, write the cookie to client.
Response.Cookies.Add(myCookie);
// redirect to home page
Response.Redirect("~/Default.aspx");
}
}
}
}
Now upload the two TesterLogin files to the root of your staging site.
You're all set! Hit the site url with your browser and you'll get nothing more than a question that wants an answer. Enter the correct response and you'll be redirected to the home page while your browser gets a 7-day cookie. For the next calendar week, you'll automatically bypass the question. Safe from indexing, Easy to remember for testers.
Enjoy