Configuration Example

This simple example shows use of this module in the context of the Authentication and DBD frameworks. Please note that you need to load an authorization module, such as mod_authz_user, to get it working.

# mod_dbd configuration
DBDriver pgsql
DBDParams "dbname=apacheauth user=apache password=xxxxxx"

DBDMin  4
DBDKeep 8
DBDMax  20
DBDExptime 300

<Directory /usr/www/myhost/private>
  # core authentication and mod_auth_basic configuration
  # for mod_authn_dbd
  AuthType Basic
  AuthName "My Server"
  AuthBasicProvider dbd

  # core authorization configuration
  Require valid-user

  # mod_authn_dbd SQL query to authenticate a user
  AuthDBDUserPWQuery \
    "SELECT password FROM authn WHERE user = %s"
</Directory>

Exposing Login Information

If httpd was built against APR version 1.3.0 or higher, then whenever a query is made to the database server, all column values in the first row returned by the query are placed in the environment, using environment variables with the prefix "AUTHENTICATE_".

If a database query for example returned the username, full name and telephone number of a user, a CGI program will have access to this information without the need to make a second independent database query to gather this additional information.

This has the potential to dramatically simplify the coding and configuration required in some web applications.

AuthDBDUserPWQuery Directive

The AuthDBDUserPWQuery specifies an SQL query to look up a password for a specified user. The user's ID will be passed as a single string parameter when the SQL query is executed. It may be referenced within the query statement using a %s format specifier.

AuthDBDUserPWQuery \
  "SELECT password FROM authn WHERE user = %s"

The first column value of the first row returned by the query statement should be a string containing the encrypted password. Subsequent rows will be ignored. If no rows are returned, the user will not be authenticated through mod_authn_dbd.

If httpd was built against APR version 1.3.0 or higher, any additional column values in the first row returned by the query statement will be stored as environment variables with names of the form AUTHENTICATE_COLUMN.

The encrypted password format depends on which authentication frontend (e.g. mod_auth_basic or mod_auth_digest) is being used. See Password Formats for more information.

AuthDBDUserRealmQuery Directive

The AuthDBDUserRealmQuery specifies an SQL query to look up a password for a specified user and realm in a digest authentication process. The user's ID and the realm, in that order, will be passed as string parameters when the SQL query is executed. They may be referenced within the query statement using %s format specifiers.

AuthDBDUserRealmQuery \
  "SELECT password FROM authn WHERE user = %s AND realm = %s"

The first column value of the first row returned by the query statement should be a string containing the encrypted password. Subsequent rows will be ignored. If no rows are returned, the user will not be authenticated through mod_authn_dbd.

If httpd was built against APR version 1.3.0 or higher, any additional column values in the first row returned by the query statement will be stored as environment variables with names of the form AUTHENTICATE_COLUMN.

The encrypted password format depends on which authentication frontend (e.g. mod_auth_basic or mod_auth_digest) is being used. See Password Formats for more information.