VPN to be required for remote access June 14

Beginning Tuesday June 14, 2022, you will need to use a VPN connection to sign in to the UMaine WordPress system when you are off campus.

Instructions for downloading and installing VPN software from UMS IT

Digital Communications and UMS IT have resolved the issue regarding the password option for pages, and we will re-implement the VPN requirement for page editing again next week. More information about password protecting individual pages appears below.

As the most popular web content management system (WCMS), WordPress is a regular target for cyber threats. UMS IT has seen an uptick in attempts to login to our WordPress environment, and while these attempts are unsuccessful, the volume of these incidents has an impact on the overall performance of our website.

In an effort to better secure our website from malicious attacks like this, we will be restricting logins to WordPress to computers that are on the UMS network. If you are working on campus, this change will not affect you, and you will be able to access the WordPress editor as you have in the past. If you are working off campus and have not already installed the University System VPN, you will need to do so by following the instructions on UMS IT’s knowledgebase.

When will this change occur?

This change will be put into place the morning of June 14.

If you need assistance setting up the VPN, you can contact the IT Help Desk at:

Email: help@maine.edu
Phone: 1.800.696.4357
Live chat: itsupport.maine.edu

Changes to password protecting a webpage

The way that you set a page to be password protected will change on June 9. Once in place, you will notice the following changes when you are in the dashboard of a UMaine WordPress website:

1. There is a “Password Protection” column in the Pages and Posts screens on the dashboard. Password protected pages now have an icon in this column. This column may be hidden by unchecking its checkbox using the “screen options” link in the upper right corner of this dashboard view.

2. When you edit a page or post, the “Visibility” options now only show Public and Private (Password option no longer appears here).

3. There is a new box in the right column for “Password Protect WordPress” where you will see the password that was previously set is now listed as “global” role with the password indicated.

To password protect a page once this update is made:

1. Open the page for editing.

2. In the “Password Protect WordPress” box you’ll see “Password protected by 0 role” with an Edit button when the page is truly public.

3. On clicking “Edit” link, the default role is “global” and there’s a box to enter the desired password. Keep the “global” role as the setting for current expected functionality, no need to do this for other logged in roles.

NOTE: there is now a quick way to password protect a page from the dashboard, you can click “Protect” on a page in the pages or posts list and the system will set the page to require a password and will assign a random string of characters as the password. You must open the page editor to view the auto-generated password, so this feature is of limited value.