php and .htaccess

[Anon]

Hi,

I have searched the forum. And couldn't find a solution to this FAQ. Is it possible to use a nice php/form to authenticate against .htaccess file (i.e., no popup window)? If not, would someone recommend me another alternative for authenticating users for different directory access. I only want a nice form like many other web sites' login page. Would someone please give me some pointers? TIA.

Thanks,
Norman

[ahajdar]

I am not sure about .htaccess but you can certainly create a file on your server (some really "wild" name so no one could guess) and then write a small script to do a search in the file to see if a user should authenticate to gain access to certain directory. Then, you could use session variables to keep track that the user is authenticated, if you wish.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

[Anon]

good question...

I'm gonna look into cause I'm curious too...

I should mention that most of those sites with "normal" logins validate users against a database, not an .htaccess file...All my sites validate that way and use page level security checks. However .htacess is too common, there must be a way