[Koha] Re: koha 1.2.3 still requiring constant login/authentification

[Chris Cormack]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 12:15:40PM +0200, Matthias & Melanie Kasimir <wahr at epost.de> said:
> Hi Owen, hello koha-gurus! 
> 
> I don't care how koha "knows" who is authenticated, but it must be 
> persistent between pages of the librarian's module. I wondered what 
> reason the cookies were set for all the time, because one can safely 
> assume that lots of users switch off cookies. Therefore I would 
> appreciate an authentification scheme whithout cookies, but I do not 
> know how to switch it on. 
> 
Hi Guys

Koha will check for basic http authentication as well as for a cookie.
So you can set up http authentication anyway you like.

What we do at HLT is use Apache::AuthDBI to authenticate against  table in
the koha database.
Heres the code in the httpd.conf

<Location />
AuthName Koha
AuthType Basic

PerlModule Apache::AuthDBI

#authenticate via DBI
PerlAuthenHandler Apache::AuthDBI::authen
PerlSetVar Auth_DBI_encrypted on
PerlSetVar Auth_DBI_data_source   DBI:mysql:koha2:localhost
PerlSetVar Auth_DBI_username      hidden
PerlSetVar Auth_DBI_password      hidden

#DBI->connect($data_source, $username, $password)

PerlSetVar Auth_DBI_pwd_table     users
PerlSetVar Auth_DBI_uid_field     username
PerlSetVar Auth_DBI_pwd_field     password
#SELECT pwd_field FROM pwd_table WHERE uid_field=$user

require valid-user
</Location>


Koha is set up to work with cookies, or with http authentication, it was set
up that way on purpose so that those who dont want to use cookies dont have
to.
Cookies are useful because you can implement a logout. Whereas with http
authentication, the browser caches the users username and password, and you
need to quit the browser to get it to forget.
Which is fine for librarians computers, and for home users using the opac,
but for the opac machines in the library, its good for the users to be able
to log themselves out.


Chris
-- 
Chris Cormack                                                     Programmer
027 4500 789                                       Katipo Communications Ltd
chris at katipo.co.nz                                          www.katipo.co.nz