Ubuntu users in Ontario, Canada?

[volksman]

geo wrote:
>
> I don't know what kinds of secure website stuff exists, that's why I'm 
> asking questions. I don't know which is the right path to take and 
> what technology I have to learn (if I have time to learn it).
>
Ok...so web based you have at least two options.  1) using htaccess or 
2) using a PHP/CGI type authentication.  Since it sounds like you are 
just starting out I would suggest htaccess as it is built in to Apache 
and is simple enough to setup and maintain.

What this entails:

In your document root for your website (/var/www by default unless you 
changed it) you'd place a file called .htaccess.  The contents of that 
file would be something along the lines of:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Password Required"
AuthUserFile /var/passwords/password.file
Require valid-user

Then you would use a shell to generate the password file with something 
like this (make sure the path you define in the .htaccess file is the 
same as below):

htpasswd -c /var/passwords/password.file geo

This command creates the password file and the first user (in this case 
called geo).   To add more users just remove the -c flag  so:

htpasswd /var/passwords/password.file anotheruser

Once that is in place hit the website.  You should be prompted for a 
user/pass.  If not you may need to update your apache config to add:

AllowOverride AuthConfig

To the Directory directive for your document root and restart Apache.  
This option may already be there by default.  I can't remember offhand.
>
> And I thought I was replying to the mail list because I click on 
> "reply". Am I not replying correctly? I don't understand that, I 
> thought I was doing this correctly?
>
 From my perspective it looks like you replied direct to me and not the 
list.  When replying you always want the To: field to be 
ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com so that the list gets the e-mail and sends it 
to all.