How to create a staging area?

for developers to work without access to live site

[PhotoGuy]

Site is in html currently - I want to hire developers to start working on some WP pages ON MY SITE not their home computer.

My solution was to create a Sub Domain, install WP in a folder "cart" there, have ftp access to that area for the developer, they could then have full access to WP but NOT to the rest of the site. Great idea, however:

WP wouldn't install in the sub-domain "cart" but had to be installed in public_html/ (I placed in separate folder "cart") however since this is "public" this gives the developer access to the Entire Site - MAJOR security risk!

Also, I don't want the WP pages to be visible on the internet (remember the site is HTML not WP)

There has to be a way to
1. Allow developer to access WP on my site but ONLY the WP folder without access to the full site.
2. Don't allow WP pages to show on the internet just yet.

Got to be a way, how can I accomplish this?

[lorax]

It sounds like you installed this new WP install in a subdirectory under the existing one. That's fine. You should be able to add a uname/pwd access to that directory and everything underneath. That will keep the bots and prying eyes away from it.

As for accessing only the files in the subdirectory - I'd speak with your webhost about that.

[phranque]

WP wouldn't install in the sub-domain "cart" but had to be installed in public_html/

this is the problem you need to fix.
you really should have this installed on a subdomain in a separate document root directory.

and if it's a staging area, use HTTP Basic Authentication to protect it from crawlers and the public with a password.

[incrediBILL]

WP wouldn't install in the sub-domain "cart" but had to be installed in public_html/

WordPress will install just about anywhere. one of the easiest scripts to install.

It's most likely a simple permissions problem, perhaps the subdomain wasn't installed properly, you didn't really specify what happened or what errors it displayed so we're just guessing here.

Are you on shared hosting? dedicated server? using a control panel like Plesk of cPanel, doing a roll-your-own Apache install? Way too little information to even begin speculating.

I'd recommend you get a developer NOW and ask them to install WordPress and if they can't or they can't explain why it won't install in less than 15 minutes, find a NEW developer, repeat and rinse until you find the right one.

A real WordPress developer will know just what to do as they've done a ton of these.

A real inexperienced WordPress developer won't have a clue and will scratch his head, you don't want that one.

Good luck with it!

[PhotoGuy]

Thanks for the advice and sorry for the delay in answering.
What I did was to create a sub-domain in my main site in the "Public" section . I installed WP in a folder there and password protected the folder.
Works like a charm.

[lorax]

Glad you got it sorted!