HTTP Authentication with PHP.

HTTP Authentication with PHP.

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Note: The HTTP Authentication hooks in PHP are only available when it is running as an Apache module and is hence not available in the CGI version.

Alright lets first start of by having a look at the header that needs to be sent: Some of you may have noticed when trying to break into a .htaccess secured folder that it gives you something like: 401 Unauthorized. Well that's atually what makes your browser to create this login box. So this idea is basiclly based on tricking the browser with that sort of header.

To send the right type of header thru PHP you use this:

header(\'WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm=\"Your Realm\"\');
header(\'HTTP/1.0 401 Unauthorized\');

The realm is your name of choice, can be anything.

PHP stores the values entered in the boc in two variables: $PHP_AUTH_USER ($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER']) and $PHP_AUTH_PWD ($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PWD']).

So lets have a look at a basic script that checks the username and password in htaccess style.

if (!isset($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER']) || !isset($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PWD'])) { // If user isn't logged in then prompt for username and password. // Start_Header output header('WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="My Realm"'); header('HTTP/1.0 401 Unauthorized'); // End_Header output echo 'You need to be logged in to view this site'; // Text to show if user pressed cancel instead of login exit; } else { if($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'] == "username" && $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PWD'] == "password") { // Code here if user successfully logged in. echo 'You are authorized'; } else { // Username or password was incorrect, prompt to login again. header('WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="My Realm"'); header('HTTP/1.0 401 Unauthorized'); echo 'You need to be logged in to view this site'; exit; } }

So i guess you read the comments in the code huh? If not, then do it! Anyway, you replace "username" and "password" with your credentials of choice.

As you may understand this way is far more dynamic then basic htaccess and can be used with database aswell.

Althou, some people that's using this has problems with the logout feature of the site (if needed). By googling i found out that making a new prompt for username and password removes the cache for the currently logged in user. So by sending the header again you can logout. Geniou huh? Althou i had some problems with that and "Headers allready sent from line blablabla" in PHP so i found an easier way to do this, althou this may not work on all browsers (Safari for example).

Some of you people may know that you can automaticly login in a htaccess protected area by making this type of URL: http://username:password@site.com/

Well, by sending false credentials our cache gets deleted. So a quick way to logout as i use is: http://logout:@site.com

Hope someone finds this article usefull so my 20minutes of typing wasn't good for nothing xD

~root_op