Tips and suggestions for WP intranet extranet set up

Question

I have my main WP site on my .com but I'm looking to have a separate WordPress installation for an intranet/extranet — essentially a library to keep internal information. I just plan on writing notes in Posts or along those lines.

Is it better to set it up on a subdomain vs subfolder? Does it matter? Should the main domain be a multisite and have the intranet a site off of that?

What are some options for hiding the site to the public (as much as possible) and for those that have direct experience with this, do you have any tips?

I suppose I can make use of a membership plugin, which is the likely route I'll take, but are there any additional methods to add privacy for information protection?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Roughly, I'd set up a new WP instance, installing it on an internal server that is not visible to the 'outside', and protected from outside use via firewalls.

If the info is just for you, you can use htaccess rules to deny access to all but your own IP address. You'd probably want to restrict access to your local subnet as further protection. You could even password-protect (via htaccess) the root folder of the WP instance.

Then, strong passwords (and a user name that is not 'admin') with no other users allowed (if just for yourself).

If you need access from the 'outside' (as from home to the WP instance at work), you should set up secure VPN access, with perhaps access only allowed to your home IP.