Not Directly an answer, but a muse: It would seem that this question is asked fairly often. In fact i think we've all dealt with the "creating a user management system from scratch for every new prject" issue. I wonder we could generalize on solution to at least make an easy jump off. For instance provide a database schema (in the form of a setup script that logins in to your database and creates the needed tables) a set of default templates and a set of default code. I for one would love something that handled user creation/mangament/ and authentication right out of the box without then handling anything else. Is there something like this already out there? Is it something everyone has wanted and no one has made? How hard would this be and what would be the best way to keep it somewhere public that could be maintained by the community? I think perhaps I've gone a little OT and so will quite for now, but expect a Meditaion on just this soon! I think a general toolkit for using (CGI::Application + HTML::Template = User Administration) could go a long way towards jump starting some projects. I know that I for one could realy use such a thing!

BTW Thats my answer, use CGI::Application + HTML::Template, both can be installed pretty much anywhere in my experience which is exactly why i'd use them for my little project ;)

I don't think you're OT at all. That's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. An out-of-the-box user authentication system.

For this particular project I don't expect to be using a database at all. The amount of information I intend to store is only a few lines per user. So having this stored in a simple text file should be perfectly sufficient.

The brief bit I did with Catalyst seems like it's the type of thing I want. But getting it installed on my webhost... eesh.

Just a shameless plugin - but we are working on adding authentication to Catalyst::Example::InstantCRUD. The svn repository is at: dev.catalyst.perl.org/repos/Catalyst/trunk/Catalyst-Example-InstantCRUD It's working with HTML::Widget from the trunk.

I think you missed the point. I want something simple and done. I don't want to worry about getting Catalyst to work which should have had Authorization/Authentication as its very first ability anyway ;) I'm working on a meditation with my ideal interface, and then i can work backwards to an implementation. Basicaly I just want a working Authentication/Authorization system plus a ready built User management system that can be bolted onto existing scrips simple and used in a more core fashion on extensive programs. Picture a work setting where we already have 10-20 scripts running and want to add security to them better than "you don't know the right URL so i don't need to worry about you running this!" ;) I don't mean to knock Catalyst but i've tried using it in the past and it never realy felt like a module to add to your program, more like an entire framework that you had to work inside and understand before it could be of much use. It probably fits its niche well, i'm just not a member of said niche.


___________
Eric Hodges

PS: That being said, I installed Catalyst both on Windows and Linux ("Mandrake") and had no real problems in doing so. Yes it took several runs of CPAN to get everything in (carefully noting the dependencies it needed and sometimes installing these separately; and on Windows switching between CPAN and ppm as needed), but nothing unsurmountable. I did have root-access on both machines and that certainly helped

I understand Catalyst is a sort of "assemble lots of parts" kind of kit. I also hear Jifty is kind of pre-assembled. You'll need to get your Module::Build installed though. There was an issue yesterday with it an version which was resolved by late afternoon (US time). You should try again.

sub require_auth { 1 }

sub get_pass_by_user {
    my $self = shift;
    my $user = shift;
    my $pass = $self->lookup_and_cache_the_pass($user);
    return $pass;
}
[download]

The other option is HTML::Template or TemplateTolkit. I was using H::T but moved to TT as I needed some stuff that were pain to make in H::T and already supported by TT ... And TT also has caching support out of the box, that even under plain CGI gets you x2 more requests while testing with Apache/bin/ab.

Anyway, you should be able to just copy these in some folder on your server and add that folder to the @INC (use lib 'relative/or/full/path';). There is an option while installing TT (on your local/dev computer) not to use XS (C) code ...

You're the second person to mention TT. And I'm not sure I understand.

I have used Template::Toolkit before. I made a bunch of web pages based on a template, and altered individual content to suit. But I don't see how TT would help with user authentication. Unless you're not recommending TT for user authentication, that is.

We were mentioning TT because it's good and some of template modules was ment to be used with CGI::App (or other MVC frameworks). So obviosly it doesn't help much with authentication. Closest thing would be to display one thing (perhaps menu) to auth. user, and another thing (login form) to non-auth. users.

Anyway TT can be used for generating lot's of pages from one template. But it's more usefull if you use it to separate perl code (Model in Mvc) and html (View in mVc) ...

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Thanks for pointing this out. Although I was confused at first, I could have sworn I mentioned this. But I guess that was in the Chatterbox.

I've read through Ovid's tutorial. I did the examples he had listed, and got some basic authentication going. But there were some holes in the tutorial that didn't quite answer my initial issues.

For example, generation of a session ID. Ovid kind of glossed over this. From a few searches I've determined that the session ID is just a randomly generated unique string. Guaranteeing a unique value sounds pretty easy with a module like Data::GUID, which I'll have to look into getting installed on my webhost.

Also the tutorial is very light on cookies and session info. I can set up a login, but keeping track of who is logged in and who isn't... not really addressed. I'm still working on that one.

So really what I need is something to bridge from Ovid's basic course to the CGI documentation (which also seems to leave a lot of things unanswered). But in any case, thanks for the suggestion.