Externally managed htaccess-protected members area in WordPress with url rewriting?

Question

I am considering converting a client project from a large number of hand-built web pages to a WordPress install. However, this client has a free area (site.com/) and a members area (site.com/members/). The members area is standard Apache .htaccess / htpasswd authentication. The authentication is handled by legacy billing software which we don't want to change at this time.

One thought is to put up two separate WordPress installs (or perhaps a MultiSite install?). One install sits on the domain root and the other sits at /members/. Thus neither install has to know anything about being password-protected. So long as the outer install cannot generate a url which includes /members/, I'm pretty sure the url-rewrite engines won't interfere with each other.

Another thought is to try to do everything in a single install, and expect the server to force authentication on any url that maps to /members/. But intuitively it feels like I'd have to go to a custom taxonomy to get "free area" category hierarchies separate from "member area" hierarchies.

Any WordPress plugins which I've found, and any related discussions, assume that the members are managed via WordPress. That's the issue: the members area is simply protected via old-school htaccess authentication.

I'm not sure that the WordPress url-rewrite mechanism would trigger the authentication part as intended, given that WordPress is sitting at the domain root, outside the members area.

On the other hand, running it as two WordPress installs, one inside the other, might be just what I need. Anyone have perspective on this? Anyone know of problems running WordPress "inside" WordPress as described?

Answer 1

Yes. Given my restrictions, a double install is the most reasonable solution.