NAME
Apache::Authen::Generic - A generic authentication handler for
the Apache webserver (under mod_perl)
SYNOPSIS
# httpd.conf
PerlModule Apache::Authen::Generic
<Location /cgi-bin/secure>
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Test Login"
PerlAuthenHandler Apache::Authen::Generic->authenticate
require valid-user
PerlSetVar generic_auth_cipher_key abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz012345
PerlSetVar generic_auth_failed_url "/cgi-bin/login/login_form.cgi"
PerlSetVar generic_auth_allow_url "^/cgi-bin/login"
PerlSetVar generic_auth_cookie_name test_cookie
PerlSetVar generic_auth_ref_url_var ref_url
PerlSetVar generic_auth_set_cookie_env 1
</Location>
# cgi script
use Apache::Authen::Generic;
my $auth_obj = Apache::Authen::Generic->new;
if (&check_login($user, $pwd)) {
my $cookie = $auth_obj->($data, $key);
print "Set-Cookie: $cookie\n";
print "Location: $redirect_url\n";
print "\n";
} else {
&handle_invalid_password()
}
# Efforts have been made to make this module work under Apache
# 1.3.* and mod_perl 1.0, but it has only been tested under
# Apache 2.0.* and mod_perl 2.0.
DESCRIPTION
Variables to set in the Apache configuration file
The following are variables to be set in the Apache
configuration file with the PerlSetVar directive.
generic_auth_cipher_key
This is the encryption key used for encrypting the cookies used
to verify authentication. It must be 32 bytes (256-bit). The
encryption used is AES-256 and uses an SHA1 digest to verify
data integrity.
generic_auth_failed_url
This is the url users are be redirected to if they have not been
authenticated (typically a login page). This url can be
relative.
generic_auth_allow_url
This is a regular expression that will be run against the URI
the user is trying to access. If a match occurs, the user will
be allowed through, as if the user had been authenticated. This
is useful for allowing the user to access the login page and to
allow access to other public pages.
generic_auth_cookie_name
This is the name of the cookie that will be used to verify
authentication. This must match the name passed to the
generateAuthCookie() method when using a CGI script for the
login process.
generic_auth_ref_url_var
This is the name of the field the handler will use to pass the
current URI to the authentication failed page. This is useful
for redirecting the user to the page the user was originally
trying to access when prompted with the login page.
generic_auth_set_cookie_env
If this is set to a true value, and the first argument passed to
the generateAuthCookie() method is a hash, those values will be
available to your CGI scripts as environment variables whose
names are the keys of the hash prefixed with the cookie name (as
set by generic_auth_cookie_name) and an underscore.
METHODS
generateAuthCookie($data, $key, $cookie_params, $cookie_name)
This method is used to generate the authentication cookie from a
CGI script. The return value is the value to set for the header
Set-Cookie without the end of line sequence, e.g.,
my $cookie = $auth_obj->($data, $key);
print "Set-Cookie: $cookie\n";
print "Location: $redirect_url\n";
print "\n";
The value for $key must be the same value assigned to
generic_auth_cipher_key in the webserver configuration.
if $data is a reference to a hash and the
generic_auth_set_cookie_env variable is set to a true value in
the Apache configuration, the values from the hash will be
available to your CGI scripts as environment variables whose
names are the keys of the hash prefixed with the cookie name (as
set by generic_auth_cookie_name) and an underscore.
authenticate($request_obj)
The main interface to this module. This is the method to be
called as the authentication handler. If you wish to subclass
this module, the following information may be useful.
The steps in authenticate() are as follows:
1) Instantiates an Apache::Authen::Generic object by calling
the new() method.
2) Check if the user is already authenticated
Calls $self->checkAlreadyAuthenticated($request_obj)
Returns OK if return value is true
3) Check if the current URI is always allowed through
Calls $self->checkGloballyAllowedUrls($req)
Returns OK if return value is true
4) Redirect to login page if the above steps fail
Calls $self->redirectToAuthFailedPage($req)
Sets a Location header and returns OK
EXAMPLES
AUTHOR
Don Owens <don@owensnet.com>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2003 Don Owens
All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can
redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
itself.
VERSION
0.01