Apache Digest access authentication

Published: Monday, Oct 18, 2010 Last modified: Wednesday, Mar 13, 2024

Digest access authentication is the quickest and most secure way of protecting a Web resource, besides using a secret URL or something.

Using a [[Apache_virtual_host_setup|04044]].

First lets setup Apache’s cryptic local filesystem .htaccess configuration file:

hendry@webconverger upload.dabase.com$ cat .htaccess
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
AuthType Digest
AuthName "upload"
AuthUserFile /srv/www/upload.dabase.com/digest-password
Require valid-user
Satisfy any

Now using htdigest, to setup an initial user and password:

hendry@webconverger upload.dabase.com$ htdigest -c digest-password upload hendry
Adding password for hendry in realm upload.
New password:
Re-type new password:
hendry@webconverger upload.dabase.com$

In PHP you can greet the user, by adding <? echo "<h1>Hello " . $_SERVER["REMOTE_USER"] . "</h1>"; ?> your PHP script.