Basic http authentication in Perl

smr has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello everybody!

The following script is written in PHP and does basic http authentication.
Now I have to do this in Perl, but I don't know how to do it.
Actually i'm a real Perl beginner :-(
Can anybody help me or tell me where I can find written help or code examples?

<?
if(!isset($PHP_AUTH_USER))
 {
  Header("WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm=\"myrealm\"");
  Header("HTTP/1.0  401  Unauthorized");
  echo ("Acces denied");
  exit;
 }
else
 {

  if ($PHP_AUTH_USER!= "user" || $PHP_AUTH_PW!= "password")
   {
     Header("WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm=\"myrealm\"");
     Header("HTTP/1.0  401  Unauthorized");
     echo ("Acces denied");
     exit;
    }
  }
?>
[download]

Thanks in advance!

Sven Rudolph

P.S. Sorry if this is a FAQ.

Edit: chipmunk 2001-03-22

Comment on Basic http authentication in Perl Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Basic http authentication in Perl by sutch (Curate) on Mar 23, 2001 at 04:44 UTC
If you want to do this with mod_perl on an Apache server, there's a great book called Writing Apache Modules with Perl and C. And here's a sample chapter on Authentication & Authorization.	[reply]
Re: Re: Basic http authentication in Perl by smr (Initiate) on Mar 23, 2001 at 05:08 UTC
Thanks for your quick reply! I think I will find my answers there, but it seems to me that this is much more complicated in Perl than it was in PHP. Bye Sven	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Basic http authentication in Perl by sutch (Curate) on Mar 23, 2001 at 05:23 UTC
I believe that you may also use CGI.pm to do handle basic authentication, but I've moved completely away from basic authentication (and the annoying popup windows) to creating HTML forms for login. The amount of complication really depends on your web server and how you want to use basic authentication. With Apache you can use an .htaccess file to require users to login with a username and password. I've rarely used that method because I was not able to find a way to log users out or to change identities--I wanted more control. If you are looking for the least complex method of authentication, I recommend that you check your web server's documentation.	[reply]

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