.htpasswd and PHP questions

[Anon]

I not familiar with the .htpasswd system and wanted get a few answer before I dive into it. I downloaded an PHP version which connects to the file for read but doesn't tell me the following:

1. Can the .htpasswd file have more than the two field?

Currently it shows that is has the users member name and password.

membername:password
Can it be 3 or even more? I need it to have a user number so that is can retrieve the users membership information once logged in.

user_no:membername:password

2. Instead of the popup box the occurs when a user clicks to sign in, can it PHP read the .htpasswd from a form post, so that the sign in box is embedded into the webpage?

[roboteddy]

try www.google.com ... search for 'htacecss tutorial'

and, to answer both of your questions, nope 🙂

[Anon]

.htpasswd is the common name for the password file used in HTTP BASIC authentication. You cannot tinker with it to add a third field. However, I can't see why you would want to do so, because the username should be a unique identifier, suitable for retrieving additional information from a data store.

HTTP BASIC authentication ordinarily takes place outside of the context of PHP. The browser is challenged by the server, the browser puts up the login box, the browser passes the login data to the server, and (on success) the page is delivered. Once the process has taken place, the name-password pair are included automatically with every subsequent HTTP request to that domain.

If you want to embed the login prompt in a page, don't use HTTP BASIC ... write your own authentication scheme using sessions.

[lentin64]

http://javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess.shtml

[Anon]

Thanks Steve this defiantly helps, that is what I'll do 🙂

The site is currently in sessions, and because the username unique I will then grab the membership settings from the database an load into the users session data.

I rather it all be databased but the credit card authorizer, and not to make it to complex, I thought I make the changes on my end.

Have you or anyone seen a HHP script the does connect to the file without using HTTP BASIC?

[Anon]

Search on "authentication" or simply "auth" on phpbuilder.

I'm using PHPlib for sessions and authentication. It takes some tweaking, because no one ever does like you want it done . . . and some of the documentation / code takes some time to figure out what, but it's a good start.

Also take a look at the columns on PHPbuilder. There's one article on PHPlib on authentication and another article about something else auth-related.
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/