I have 4 websites :
- 1 "root" domain : tooliphone.net
- 3 sub-domains, one for each "app/service" : iempty.tooliphone.net, icustom.tooliphone.net and iskin.tooliphone.net
Today, I'd like to duplicate these 4 websites to create a "beta testing" environment where I can publish beta versions of upcoming features for each service, and make it accessible to some selected users for beta testing / early access purpose.
So I need to protect access to these beta websites with basic credentials (login / password). The easiest way seems to be a simple .htpasswd file and .htaccess configuration
So I created 4 new sub-domains : beta.tooliphone.net, beta.iempty.tooliphone.net, beta.icustom.tooliphone.net and beta.iskin.tooliphone.net
In each website, I've put this on top of the .htaccess file
AuthUserFile /path/to/my/htpasswd/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Restricted BETA area - TooLiPHoNe.NeT"
AuthType Basic
<Limit GET POST>
require valid-user
</Limit>
This works, I'm prompted to enter the user/password for each website (same user/password as this points to the same htpasswd with only one user into it).
But I'd like my beta users to enter only ONCE the credentials to access all the 4 beta websites.
For example :
- a user go to beta.iempty.tooliphone.net
- he enter the beta credentials and get access
- then he go to beta.iskin.tooliphone.net or beta.tooliphone.net
- he doesn't have to enter again the credentials and he is not prompted for that
This is also important because for example when he visits the root website beta.tooliphone.net, I have links on the first page to icons of the other websites.
The result is that a user visiting the root domain is prompted 4 times to enter the same credentials! One to access the root website, the others to display the other websites icons.
This is not really "user friendly" ! :)
How can I achieve to "share" the entered credentiels in one of the 4 websites with all?
Thanks in advance for your feedbacks