NAME
     Apache::AuthenPasswd - mod_perl passwd Authentication module

SYNOPSIS
         <Directory /foo/bar>
         # This is the standard authentication stuff
         AuthName "Foo Bar Authentication"
         AuthType Basic

         PerlAuthenHandler Apache::AuthenPasswd

         # Standard require stuff, /etc/passwd users or /etc/group groups, and
         # "valid-user" all work OK
         require user username1 username2 ...
         require group groupname1 groupname2 ... # [Need Apache::AuthzPasswd]
         require valid-user

         # The following is actually only needed when authorizing
         # against /etc/group. This is a separate module.
         PerlAuthzHandler Apache::AuthzPasswd

         </Directory>

         These directives can also be used in the <Location> directive or in
         an .htaccess file.


DESCRIPTION
     This perl module is designed to work with mod_perl and the
     Net::NIS module by Rik Haris (rik.harris@fulcrum.com.au).
     It is a direct adaptation (i.e. I modified the code) of
     Michael Parker's (parker@austx.tandem.com) Apache::AuthenSmb
     module.

     The module uses getpwnam to retrieve the passwd entry from
     the /etc/passwd file, using the supplied username as the
     search key.  It then uses crypt() to verify that the
     supplied password matches the retrieved hashed password.

     Apache::AuthenPasswdApache::AuthzPasswd

     I've taken "authentication" to be meaningful only in terms
     of a user and password combination, not group membership.
     This means that you can use Apache::AuthenPasswd with the
     require user and require valid-user directives.  In the
     /etc/passwd and /etc/group context I consider require group
     to be an "authorization" concern.  I.e., group authorization
     consists of establishing whether the already authenticated
     user is a member of one of the indicated groups in the
     require group directive.  This process may be handled by
     Apache::AuthzPasswd.  Admittedly, AuthzPasswd is a misnomer,
     but I wanted to keep AuthenPasswd and AuthzPasswd related,
     if only by name.

     I welcome any feedback on this module, esp. code
     improvements, given that it was written hastily, to say the
     least.

AUTHOR
     Demetrios E. Paneras <dep@media.mit.edu>

COPYRIGHT
     Copyright (c) 1998 Demetrios E. Paneras, MIT Media
     Laboratory.

     This library is free software; you can redistribute it
     and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.