Restrict access

Question

I have a client who is expanding his store to a new country. I created the new website using the symbolic links method. Before we used the Store Maintanence plugin (https://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/store-maintenance.html) which is great to grant access from just a few IP address, the problem is that the new domains uses CloudFlare, so as a result every visit has a different IP address, I can't use the administrator access only, because the admins log in from a different URL.

I tried password protecting via .htaccess but then it gives me a 500 Internal Server Error.

So, what other methods can be used to grant access for just a few persons until the new website is ready?

Answer 1

I always use this plugin, it enables admins to see the shop and disallows all others:

https://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/maintenance-page-artson-it-1.html

htaccess should work too. If you got a 500 error, the problem is most likely a syntax error or a problem with your hosting provider.