mod_authn_core
Core Authentication
Base
mod_authn_core.c
authn_core_module
Available in Apache 2.3 and later

This module provides core authentication capabilities to allow or deny access to portions of the web site. mod_authn_core provides directives that are common to all authentication providers.

# Creating Authentication Provider Aliases

Extended authentication providers can be created within the configuration file and assigned an alias name. The alias providers can then be referenced through the directives AuthBasicProvider or AuthDigestProvider in the same way as a base authentication provider. Besides the ability to create and alias an extended provider, it also allows the same extended authentication provider to be reference by multiple locations.

## Examples

This example checks for passwords in two different text files.

### Checking multiple text password files

# Check here first <AuthnProviderAlias file file1> AuthUserFile "/www/conf/passwords1" </AuthnProviderAlias>

# Then check here <AuthnProviderAlias file file2> AuthUserFile "/www/conf/passwords2" </AuthnProviderAlias>

<Directory "/var/web/pages/secure"> AuthBasicProvider file1 file2

AuthType Basic AuthName "Protected Area" Require valid-user </Directory>

The example below creates two different ldap authentication provider aliases based on the ldap provider. This allows a single authenticated location to be serviced by multiple ldap hosts:

### Checking multiple LDAP servers

<AuthnProviderAlias ldap ldap-alias1> AuthLDAPBindDN cn=youruser,o=ctx AuthLDAPBindPassword yourpassword AuthLDAPURL ldap://ldap.host/o=ctx </AuthnProviderAlias> <AuthnProviderAlias ldap ldap-other-alias> AuthLDAPBindDN cn=yourotheruser,o=dev AuthLDAPBindPassword yourotherpassword AuthLDAPURL ldap://other.ldap.host/o=dev?cn </AuthnProviderAlias>

Alias "/secure" "/webpages/secure" <Directory "/webpages/secure"> AuthBasicProvider ldap-other-alias ldap-alias1

AuthType Basic AuthName "LDAP Protected Place" Require valid-user # Note that Require ldap-* would not work here, since the # AuthnProviderAlias does not provide the config to authorization providers # that are implemented in the same module as the authentication provider. </Directory>
AuthName
Authorization realm for use in HTTP authentication
AuthName auth-domain
directory
.htaccess
AuthConfig

This directive sets the name of the authorization realm for a directory. This realm is given to the client so that the user knows which username and password to send. AuthName takes a single argument; if the realm name contains spaces, it must be enclosed in quotation marks. It must be accompanied by AuthType and Require directives, and directives such as AuthUserFile and AuthGroupFile to work.

For example:

AuthName "Top Secret"

The string provided for the `AuthName` is what will appear in the password dialog provided by most browsers.

Authentication, Authorization, and Access Control
mod_authz_core
AuthType
Type of user authentication
AuthType None|Basic|Digest|Form
directory
.htaccess
AuthConfig

This directive selects the type of user authentication for a directory. The authentication types available are `None`, `Basic` (implemented by mod_auth_basic), `Digest` (implemented by mod_auth_digest), and `Form` (implemented by mod_auth_form).

To implement authentication, you must also use the AuthName and Require directives. In addition, the server must have an authentication-provider module such as mod_authn_file and an authorization module such as mod_authz_user.

The authentication type `None` disables authentication. When authentication is enabled, it is normally inherited by each subsequent configuration section, unless a different authentication type is specified. If no authentication is desired for a subsection of an authenticated section, the authentication type `None` may be used; in the following example, clients may access the `/www/docs/public` directory without authenticating:

<Directory "/www/docs"> AuthType Basic AuthName Documents AuthBasicProvider file AuthUserFile "/usr/local/apache/passwd/passwords" Require valid-user </Directory>

<Directory "/www/docs/public"> AuthType None Require all granted </Directory>

When disabling authentication, note that clients which have already authenticated against another portion of the server's document tree will typically continue to send authentication HTTP headers or cookies with each request, regardless of whether the server actually requires authentication for every resource.

Authentication, Authorization, and Access Control
AuthnProviderAlias
Enclose a group of directives that represent an extension of a base authentication provider and referenced by the specified alias
<AuthnProviderAlias baseProvider Alias> ... </AuthnProviderAlias>
server config

`<AuthnProviderAlias>` and `</AuthnProviderAlias>` are used to enclose a group of authentication directives that can be referenced by the alias name using one of the directives AuthBasicProvider or AuthDigestProvider.

This directive has no affect on authorization, even for modules that provide both authentication and authorization.