2009/4/11 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
The main page can be a splash page that says "members only" or supplies a login form. You set it so that only logged-in users can view any other pages. Then you authenticate against the forum (this is the "magic beans" bit, I'm not sure of the details, but I'm sure others have done this).
Example (though this does use MediaWiki's login system): http://internal.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page http://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
- d.