Publishing a Category to a Private Location

Brett Morgan wants to publish a Radio Userland category to a private "behind-the-firewall" location. If you can upload to the location using FTP, you can accomplish this by creating the new category, adding your FTP password to Radio Userland, and putting an #upstream.xml file in the category's folder that contains your FTP settings.

For example:

Create a new category. I called mine Private.
Choose the "render this category in HTML" option and do not choose the "notify Weblogs.Com" option.
Choose a theme for the category's HTML rendering and submit the category.
Create a new password.
Give the password a name that describes its role. I gave mine the same name as my FTP username, but that's not required.
Enter your FTP password and submit the password.
Open the folder that contains your category, which is named after the category. Because I named mine Private, it is in Radio Userland's www/categories/private folder.
Create a file called #upstream.xml in that folder and add your FTP settings to it.
The #upstream.xml file must contain your FTP server name, username, the folder that will contain your category and its URL.
Don't put your FTP password in the passwordName element of this file. Instead, put the name you gave the password in Step 5. Here's the #upstream.xml I created (the name was changed so I could publish it; Radio Userland won't normally publish files that begin with a "#" sign).
Publish an item to your private category.

Important note: None of this makes your category private. You must make sure the FTP location is private on your own.

I published my category to a folder that uses Apache's .htaccess feature to keep people out. As far as I can tell, it's working. If anyone can figure out a way to view what I have said about the musical group Creed in my private weblog, let me know and I'll update this story.

Radiouserland · 2002/08/03 · 0 COMMENTS · Link