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<title>Authentication, Authorization and Access Control - Apache HTTP Server</title>
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<p class="apache">Apache HTTP Server Version 2.2</p>
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<a href="http://www.apache.org/">Apache</a> > <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/">HTTP Server</a> > <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/">Documentation</a> > <a href="../">Version 2.2</a> > <a href="./">How-To / Tutorials</a></div><div id="page-content"><div id="preamble"><h1>Authentication, Authorization and Access Control</h1>
<div class="toplang">
<p><span>Available Languages: </span><a href="../en/howto/auth.html" title="English"> en </a> |
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<p>Authentication is any process by which you verify that
someone is who they claim they are. Authorization is any
process by which someone is allowed to be where they want to
go, or to have information that they want to have.</p>
</div>
<div id="quickview"><ul id="toc"><li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#related">Related Modules and Directives</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#theprerequisites">The Prerequisites</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#gettingitworking">Getting it working</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#satisfy">Satisfy</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#lettingmorethanonepersonin">Letting more than one
person in</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#possibleproblems">Possible problems</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#dbmdbd">Alternate password storage</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#moreinformation">More information</a></li>
</ul></div>
<div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="related" id="related">Related Modules and Directives</a></h2>
<p>There are three types of modules involved in the authentication and
authorization process. You will usually need to choose at least one
module from each group.</p>
<ul>
<li>Authentication type (see the
<code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#authtype">AuthType</a></code> directive)
<ul>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_auth_basic.html">mod_auth_basic</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_auth_digest.html">mod_auth_digest</a></code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Authentication provider
<ul>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_alias.html">mod_authn_alias</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_anon.html">mod_authn_anon</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_dbd.html">mod_authn_dbd</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_dbm.html">mod_authn_dbm</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_default.html">mod_authn_default</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_file.html">mod_authn_file</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authnz_ldap.html">mod_authnz_ldap</a></code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Authorization (see the
<code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#require">Require</a></code> directive)
<ul>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authnz_ldap.html">mod_authnz_ldap</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authz_dbm.html">mod_authz_dbm</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authz_default.html">mod_authz_default</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authz_groupfile.html">mod_authz_groupfile</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authz_owner.html">mod_authz_owner</a></code></li>
<li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authz_user.html">mod_authz_user</a></code></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The module <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authnz_ldap.html">mod_authnz_ldap</a></code> is both an
authentication and authorization provider. The module
<code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_alias.html">mod_authn_alias</a></code> is not an authentication provider
in itself, but allows other authentication providers to be
configured in a flexible manner.</p>
<p>The module <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authz_host.html">mod_authz_host</a></code> provides authorization
and access control based on hostname, IP address or characteristics
of the request, but is not part of the authentication provider
system.</p>
<p>You probably also want to take a look at the <a href="access.html">Access Control</a> howto, which discusses the
various ways to control access to your server.</p>
</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="introduction" id="introduction">Introduction</a></h2>
<p>If you have information on your web site that is sensitive
or intended for only a small group of people, the techniques in
this article will help you make sure that the people that see
those pages are the people that you wanted to see them.</p>
<p>This article covers the "standard" way of protecting parts
of your web site that most of you are going to use.</p>
<div class="note"><h3>Note:</h3>
<p>If your data really needs to be secure, consider using
<code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_ssl.html">mod_ssl</a></code> in addition to any authentication.</p>
</div>
</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="theprerequisites" id="theprerequisites">The Prerequisites</a></h2>
<p>The directives discussed in this article will need to go
either in your main server configuration file (typically in a
<code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#directory"><Directory></a></code> section), or
in per-directory configuration files (<code>.htaccess</code> files).</p>
<p>If you plan to use <code>.htaccess</code> files, you will
need to have a server configuration that permits putting
authentication directives in these files. This is done with the
<code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#allowoverride">AllowOverride</a></code> directive, which
specifies which directives, if any, may be put in per-directory
configuration files.</p>
<p>Since we're talking here about authentication, you will need
an <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#allowoverride">AllowOverride</a></code> directive like the
following:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
AllowOverride AuthConfig
</code></p></div>
<p>Or, if you are just going to put the directives directly in
your main server configuration file, you will of course need to
have write permission to that file.</p>
<p>And you'll need to know a little bit about the directory
structure of your server, in order to know where some files are
kept. This should not be terribly difficult, and I'll try to
make this clear when we come to that point.</p>
</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="gettingitworking" id="gettingitworking">Getting it working</a></h2>
<p>Here's the basics of password protecting a directory on your
server.</p>
<p>First, you need to create a password file. Exactly how you do
this will vary depending on what authentication provider you have
chosen. More on that later. To start with, we'll use a text password
file.</p>
<p>This file should be
placed somewhere not accessible from the web. This is so that
folks cannot download the password file. For example, if your
documents are served out of <code>/usr/local/apache/htdocs</code> you
might want to put the password file(s) in
<code>/usr/local/apache/passwd</code>.</p>
<p>To create the file, use the <code class="program"><a href="../programs/htpasswd.html">htpasswd</a></code> utility that
came with Apache. This will be located in the <code>bin</code> directory
of wherever you installed Apache. If you have installed Apache from
a third-party package, it may be in your execution path.</p>
<p>To create the file, type:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
htpasswd -c /usr/local/apache/passwd/passwords rbowen
</code></p></div>
<p><code class="program"><a href="../programs/htpasswd.html">htpasswd</a></code> will ask you for the password, and
then ask you to type it again to confirm it:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
# htpasswd -c /usr/local/apache/passwd/passwords rbowen<br />
New password: mypassword<br />
Re-type new password: mypassword<br />
Adding password for user rbowen
</code></p></div>
<p>If <code class="program"><a href="../programs/htpasswd.html">htpasswd</a></code> is not in your path, of course
you'll have to type the full path to the file to get it to run.
With a default installation, it's located at
<code>/usr/local/apache2/bin/htpasswd</code></p>
<p>Next, you'll need to configure the server to request a
password and tell the server which users are allowed access.
You can do this either by editing the <code>httpd.conf</code>
file or using an <code>.htaccess</code> file. For example, if
you wish to protect the directory
<code>/usr/local/apache/htdocs/secret</code>, you can use the
following directives, either placed in the file
<code>/usr/local/apache/htdocs/secret/.htaccess</code>, or
placed in <code>httpd.conf</code> inside a <Directory
/usr/local/apache/apache/htdocs/secret> section.</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
AuthType Basic<br />
AuthName "Restricted Files"<br />
# (Following line optional)<br />
AuthBasicProvider file<br />
AuthUserFile /usr/local/apache/passwd/passwords<br />
Require user rbowen
</code></p></div>
<p>Let's examine each of those directives individually. The <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#authtype">AuthType</a></code> directive selects
that method that is used to authenticate the user. The most
common method is <code>Basic</code>, and this is the method
implemented by <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_auth_basic.html">mod_auth_basic</a></code>. It is important to be aware,
however, that Basic authentication sends the password from the client to
the server unencrypted. This method should therefore not be used for
highly sensitive data, unless accompanied by <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_ssl.html">mod_ssl</a></code>.
Apache supports one other authentication method:
<code>AuthType Digest</code>. This method is implemented by <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_auth_digest.html">mod_auth_digest</a></code> and is much more secure. Most recent
browsers support Digest authentication.</p>
<p>The <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#authname">AuthName</a></code> directive sets
the <dfn>Realm</dfn> to be used in the authentication. The realm serves
two major functions. First, the client often presents this information to
the user as part of the password dialog box. Second, it is used by the
client to determine what password to send for a given authenticated
area.</p>
<p>So, for example, once a client has authenticated in the
<code>"Restricted Files"</code> area, it will automatically
retry the same password for any area on the same server that is
marked with the <code>"Restricted Files"</code> Realm.
Therefore, you can prevent a user from being prompted more than
once for a password by letting multiple restricted areas share
the same realm. Of course, for security reasons, the client
will always need to ask again for the password whenever the
hostname of the server changes.</p>
<p>The <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_auth_basic.html#authbasicprovider">AuthBasicProvider</a></code> is,
in this case, optional, since <code>file</code> is the default value
for this directive. You'll need to use this directive if you are
choosing a different source for authentication, such as
<code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_dbm.html">mod_authn_dbm</a></code> or <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_dbd.html">mod_authn_dbd</a></code>.</p>
<p>The <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_file.html#authuserfile">AuthUserFile</a></code>
directive sets the path to the password file that we just
created with <code class="program"><a href="../programs/htpasswd.html">htpasswd</a></code>. If you have a large number
of users, it can be quite slow to search through a plain text
file to authenticate the user on each request. Apache also has
the ability to store user information in fast database files.
The <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_dbm.html">mod_authn_dbm</a></code> module provides the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_dbm.html#authdbmuserfile">AuthDBMUserFile</a></code> directive. These
files can be created and manipulated with the <code class="program"><a href="../programs/dbmmanage.html">dbmmanage</a></code> program. Many
other types of authentication options are available from third
party modules in the <a href="http://modules.apache.org/">Apache Modules
Database</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#require">Require</a></code>
directive provides the authorization part of the process by
setting the user that is allowed to access this region of the
server. In the next section, we discuss various ways to use the
<code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#require">Require</a></code> directive.</p>
</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="satisfy" id="satisfy">Satisfy</a></h2>
<p>The <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#satisfy">Satisfy</a></code> directive can be used to specify
that several criteria may be considered when trying to decide if a particular user
will be granted admission. Satisfy can take as an argument one of two options - <code>all</code>
or <code>any</code>. By default, it is assumed that the value is <code>all</code>. This means that if several
criteria are specified, then all of them must be met in order for someone to get in.
However, if set to <code>any</code>, then several criteria may be specified, but if
the user satisfies any of these, then they will be granted entrance.</p>
<p>An example of this is using access control to assure that, although a resource
is password protected from outside your network, all hosts inside the network
will be given unauthenticated access to the resource. This would be accomplished
by using the Satisfy directive, as shown below.</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
<Directory /usr/local/apache/htdocs/sekrit><br />
AuthType Basic<br />
AuthName intranet<br />
AuthUserFile /www/passwd/users<br />
AuthGroupFile /www/passwd/groups<br />
Require group customers<br />
Order allow,deny<br />
Allow from internal.com<br />
Satisfy any<br />
</Directory>
</code></p></div>
</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="lettingmorethanonepersonin" id="lettingmorethanonepersonin">Letting more than one
person in</a></h2>
<p>The directives above only let one person (specifically
someone with a username of <code>rbowen</code>) into the
directory. In most cases, you'll want to let more than one
person in. This is where the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_authz_groupfile.html#authgroupfile">AuthGroupFile</a></code> comes in.</p>
<p>If you want to let more than one person in, you'll need to
create a group file that associates group names with a list of
users in that group. The format of this file is pretty simple,
and you can create it with your favorite editor. The contents
of the file will look like this:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
GroupName: rbowen dpitts sungo rshersey
</code></p></div>
<p>That's just a list of the members of the group in a long
line separated by spaces.</p>
<p>To add a user to your already existing password file,
type:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
htpasswd /usr/local/apache/passwd/passwords dpitts
</code></p></div>
<p>You'll get the same response as before, but it will be
appended to the existing file, rather than creating a new file.
(It's the <code>-c</code> that makes it create a new password
file).</p>
<p>Now, you need to modify your <code>.htaccess</code> file to
look like the following:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
AuthType Basic<br />
AuthName "By Invitation Only"<br />
# Optional line:<br />
AuthBasicProvider file<br />
AuthUserFile /usr/local/apache/passwd/passwords<br />
AuthGroupFile /usr/local/apache/passwd/groups<br />
Require group GroupName
</code></p></div>
<p>Now, anyone that is listed in the group <code>GroupName</code>,
and has an entry in the <code>password</code> file, will be let in, if
they type the correct password.</p>
<p>There's another way to let multiple users in that is less
specific. Rather than creating a group file, you can just use
the following directive:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
Require valid-user
</code></p></div>
<p>Using that rather than the <code>Require user rbowen</code>
line will allow anyone in that is listed in the password file,
and who correctly enters their password. You can even emulate
the group behavior here, by just keeping a separate password
file for each group. The advantage of this approach is that
Apache only has to check one file, rather than two. The
disadvantage is that you have to maintain a bunch of password
files, and remember to reference the right one in the
<code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_file.html#authuserfile">AuthUserFile</a></code> directive.</p>
</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="possibleproblems" id="possibleproblems">Possible problems</a></h2>
<p>Because of the way that Basic authentication is specified,
your username and password must be verified every time you
request a document from the server. This is even if you're
reloading the same page, and for every image on the page (if
they come from a protected directory). As you can imagine, this
slows things down a little. The amount that it slows things
down is proportional to the size of the password file, because
it has to open up that file, and go down the list of users
until it gets to your name. And it has to do this every time a
page is loaded.</p>
<p>A consequence of this is that there's a practical limit to
how many users you can put in one password file. This limit
will vary depending on the performance of your particular
server machine, but you can expect to see slowdowns once you
get above a few hundred entries, and may wish to consider a
different authentication method at that time.</p>
</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="dbmdbd" id="dbmdbd">Alternate password storage</a></h2>
<p>Because storing passwords in plain text files has the above
problems, you may wish to store your passwords somewhere else, such
as in a database.</p>
<p><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_dbm.html">mod_authn_dbm</a></code> and <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_dbd.html">mod_authn_dbd</a></code> are two
modules which make this possible. Rather than selecting <code><code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_auth_basic.html#authbasicprovider">AuthBasicProvider</a></code> file</code>, instead
you can choose <code>dbm</code> or <code>dbd</code> as your storage
format.</p>
<p>To select a dbd file rather than a text file, for example:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
<Directory /www/docs/private><br />
AuthName "Private"<br />
AuthType Basic<br />
AuthBasicProvider dbm<br />
AuthDBMUserFile /www/passwords/passwd.dbm<br />
Require valid-user<br />
</Directory>
</code></p></div>
<p>Other options are available. Consult the
<code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_dbm.html">mod_authn_dbm</a></code> documentation for more details.</p>
</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="moreinformation" id="moreinformation">More information</a></h2>
<p>You should also read the documentation for
<code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_auth_basic.html">mod_auth_basic</a></code> and <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authz_host.html">mod_authz_host</a></code> which
contain some more information about how this all works.
<code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_authn_alias.html">mod_authn_alias</a></code> can also help in simplifying certain
authentication configurations.</p>
<p>The various ciphers supported by Apache for authentication data are
explained in <a href="../misc/password_encryptions.html">Password
Encryptions</a>.</p>
<p>And you may want to look at the <a href="access.html">Access
Control</a> howto, which discusses a number of related topics.</p>
</div></div>
<div class="bottomlang">
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<p class="apache">Copyright 2012 The Apache Software Foundation.<br />Licensed under the <a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0">Apache License, Version 2.0</a>.</p>
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