I am seeking wisdom about the current 'state of the art' with respect to user authentication in a typical mod_perl (v1 or v2) environment.

this has been a question, oft asked by other brothers of the monastery, for example;

http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=464495

here is a sample of stock (and very good) response;

• investigate CGI::Session
• read CGI::Session::Tutorial
• investigate Apache::Session
• investigate Mason w/ Apache::Session
• session cookbook at http://search.cpan.org/~sherzodr/CGI-Session-3.95/Session/CookBook.pm
• other modules at cpan e.g. http://search.cpan.org/author/LDS/HTTPD-User-Manage-1.6
• should I even contemplate Google's AuthSub or YAhoo BBAuth or *gasp* AOL OpenAuth / MS Live Contacts API?

my particular need is further complicated by the requirement to manage users across the following;

unix user/groups: enforcement of perms on files and execution

svn repository: enforcement of svn groups and users

database: integrate with db users

apache users: integrate with http auth

I know that its unlikely that there exists any single approach to solving this problem ... any top tips ?

some ruminations;

• should I opt to for a single svn or linux user to represent application then have the notion of application users / groups?
• probably should define user/groups in data layer then transform from there
• is there any specific module/framework that is more appropriate
• there maybe more authentication schemes later on to integrate.

thx in advance, Jim Fuller


Update: In the end I decided to go with LDAP and was pleasantly surprised