Note:
The user interface has been simplified in Dreamweaver CC and later. As a result, you may not find some of the options described in this article in Dreamweaver CC and later. For more information, see this article.
Your web application can contain a protected page that only authorized users can access.
For example, if a user attempts to bypass the login page by typing the protected page’s URL in a browser, the user is redirected to another page. Similarly, if you set the authorization level for a page to Administrator only users with Administrator access privileges can view the page. If a logged-in user attempts to access the protected page without the proper access privileges, the user is redirected to another page.
You can also use authorization levels to review newly registered users before granting them full access to the site. For example, you may want to receive payment before allowing a user access to the member pages of the site. To do so, you can protect the member pages with a Member authorization level and only grant newly registered users Guest privileges. After receiving payment from the user, you can upgrade the user’s access privileges to Member (in the database table of registered users).
If you do not plan to use authorization levels, you can protect any page on your site simply by adding a Restrict Access To Page server behavior to the page. The server behavior redirects to another page any user who has not successfully logged in.
If you do plan to use authorization levels, you can protect any page on your site with the following building blocks:
A Restrict Access To Page server behavior to redirect unauthorized users to another page
An extra column in your users database table to store each user’s access privileges
Regardless of whether you use authorization levels, you can add a link to the protected page that lets a user log out and clears any session variables.
To prevent unauthorized users from accessing a page, add a Restrict Access To Page server behavior to it. The server behavior redirects the user to another page if the user attempts to bypass the login page by typing the protected page’s URL in a browser, or if the user is logged in but attempts to access the protected page without the proper access privileges.
Note:
The Restrict Access To Page server behavior can only protect HTML pages. It does not protect other site resources such as image files and audio files.
If you want to give many pages on your site the same access rights, you can copy and paste access rights from one page to another.
This building block is required only if you want certain logged-in users to have different access privileges. If you simply require users to log in, you don’t have to store access privileges.
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To provide certain logged-in users with different access privileges, make sure your database table of users contains a column specifying each user’s access privileges (Guest, User, Administrator, and so on). The access privileges of each user should be entered in the database by the site administrator.
In most database applications, you can set a column to a default value each time a new record is created. Set the default value to the most common access privilege on your site (for example, Guest); then manually change the exceptions (for example, changing Guest to Administrator). The user now has access to all administrator pages.
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Make sure each user in the database has a single access privilege, such as Guest or Administrator, not multiple privileges like User, Administrator. To set multiple access privileges for your pages (for example, all guests and administrators can see this page), set those privileges at the page level, not the database level.
When a user logs in successfully, a session variable is created that consists of the user name. When the user leaves your site, you can use the Log Out User server behavior to clear the session variable and redirect the user to another page (usually a goodbye or thank you page).
You can invoke the Log Out User server behavior when the user clicks a link or when a specific page loads.
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