Mailing List Archive

problem authenticicating ~user
Hi folks,

Im having a hard time getting the authenticication to work as
expected. I am the systems administrator for the Computer Science Dept
at a university. I want to set up directories for students to build
home pages for a class they take. The chair wants to set a username
and password for them to use so that the outside world wont see these
pages. Simple enough....well I thought so.

I have experimented with the .htaccess file and have gotten it to work
for specific directories no problem. I have also experimented with the
httpd.conf and put the /Directory stuff in there and it works somewhat
just as the .htaccess stuff does. Now for the problem.....

Home pages are located in /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/u.
There are several directories there to seperate out faculty, staff and
students. The students directory is called css. Their home page is
located in css/username. A link is in the /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/u
directory pointing to css/username.

If I use a browser and go to http://www.server.here/u/css/username
everything works great. The browser prompts for a username and password
like it should. However if i point the browser to
http://www.server.here/~username it bypasses the authenication entirely
even though it is located at the same spot as the example above.

Any ideas why? I know this is probably hard to follow, if so ill
explain more if needed.


Here is a picture of the directory structure:

/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/u:
drwxrwxrwx css
rwxrwxrwx --> ./css/username username

/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/u/css:
drwxrwxrwx username

thanks for any help!

darryl


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Re: problem authenticicating ~user [ In reply to ]
On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, Darryl Cook wrote:
> If I use a browser and go to http://www.server.here/u/css/username
> everything works great. The browser prompts for a username and password
> like it should. However if i point the browser to
> http://www.server.here/~username it bypasses the authenication entirely
> even though it is located at the same spot as the example above.

Please show us the exact configuration you are using. My guess is either:

1. You are using .htaccess and you don't have AllowOverride set correctly.
or
2. You are setting things in a <Location> section, whereas you should be
using a <Directory> section.

Joshua.


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Re: problem authenticicating ~user [ In reply to ]
Actually I solved the problem.....the problem was the way the links were set
up. I have to actually check against two different directories in the
httpd.conf file even though they are the same directory because of the
links. I didnt want to use a .htaccess file because the users could delete
that file and bypass security. I wanted it in the conf file so they cant mess
with it.

thanks!
darryl

Joshua Slive wrote:

> On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, Darryl Cook wrote:
> > If I use a browser and go to http://www.server.here/u/css/username
> > everything works great. The browser prompts for a username and password
> > like it should. However if i point the browser to
> > http://www.server.here/~username it bypasses the authenication entirely
> > even though it is located at the same spot as the example above.
>
> Please show us the exact configuration you are using. My guess is either:
>
> 1. You are using .htaccess and you don't have AllowOverride set correctly.
> or
> 2. You are setting things in a <Location> section, whereas you should be
> using a <Directory> section.
>
> Joshua.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP Server Project.
> See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info.
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