repo_zf1/documentation/manual/en/module_specs/Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<sect1 id="zend.auth.adapter.http">
    <title>HTTP Authentication Adapter</title>

    <sect2 id="zend.auth.adapter.http.introduction">
        <title>Introduction</title>

        <para>
            <classname>Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http</classname> provides a mostly-compliant
            implementation of <ulink url="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2617">RFC-2617</ulink>,
            <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_authentication_scheme">Basic</ulink>
            and <ulink
                url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digest_access_authentication">Digest</ulink>
            <acronym>HTTP</acronym> Authentication. Digest authentication is a method of
            <acronym>HTTP</acronym> authentication that improves upon Basic authentication by
            providing a way to authenticate without having to transmit the password in clear text
            across the network.
        </para>

        <para>
            <emphasis>Major Features:</emphasis>
        </para>

        <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
                <para>
                    Supports both Basic and Digest authentication.
                </para>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
                <para>
                    Issues challenges in all supported schemes, so client can respond with any
                    scheme it supports.
                </para>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
                <para>
                    Supports proxy authentication.
                </para>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
                <para>
                    Includes support for authenticating against text files and provides an
                    interface for authenticating against other sources, such as databases.
                </para>
            </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>

        <para>
            There are a few notable features of <acronym>RFC-2617</acronym> that are not
            implemented yet:
        </para>

        <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
                <para>
                    Nonce tracking, which would allow for "stale" support, and increased replay
                    attack protection.
                </para>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
                <para>
                    Authentication with integrity checking, or "auth-int".
                </para>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
                <para>
                    Authentication-Info <acronym>HTTP</acronym> header.
                </para>
            </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>
    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="zend.auth.adapter.design_overview">
        <title>Design Overview</title>

        <para>
            This adapter consists of two sub-components, the <acronym>HTTP</acronym> authentication
            class itself, and the so-called "Resolvers." The <acronym>HTTP</acronym> authentication
            class encapsulates the logic for carrying out both Basic and Digest authentication. It
            uses a Resolver to look up a client's identity in some data store (text file by
            default), and retrieve the credentials from the data store. The "resolved" credentials
            are then compared to the values submitted by the client to determine whether
            authentication is successful.
        </para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="zend.auth.adapter.configuration_options">
        <title>Configuration Options</title>

        <para>
            The <classname>Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http</classname> class requires a configuration array
            passed to its constructor. There are several configuration options available, and some
            are required:
        </para>

        <table id="zend.auth.adapter.configuration_options.table">
            <title>Configuration Options</title>

            <tgroup cols="3">
                <thead>
                    <row>
                        <entry>Option Name</entry>
                        <entry>Required</entry>
                        <entry>Description</entry>
                    </row>
                </thead>

                <tbody>
                    <row>
                        <entry><emphasis><property>accept_schemes</property></emphasis></entry>
                        <entry>Yes</entry>

                        <entry>
                            Determines which authentication schemes the adapter will accept from
                            the client. Must be a space-separated list containing
                            <emphasis>'basic'</emphasis> and/or <emphasis>'digest'</emphasis>.
                        </entry>
                    </row>

                    <row>
                        <entry><emphasis><property>realm</property></emphasis></entry>
                        <entry>Yes</entry>

                        <entry>
                            Sets the authentication realm; usernames should be unique within a
                            given realm.
                        </entry>
                    </row>

                    <row>
                        <entry><emphasis><property>digest_domains</property></emphasis></entry>

                        <entry>
                            Yes, when <property>accept_schemes</property> contains
                            <emphasis>digest</emphasis>
                        </entry>

                        <entry>
                            Space-separated list of <acronym>URI</acronym>s for which the same
                            authentication information is valid. The <acronym>URI</acronym>s need
                            not all point to the same server.
                        </entry>
                    </row>

                    <row>
                        <entry><emphasis><property>nonce_timeout</property></emphasis></entry>

                        <entry>
                            Yes, when <property>accept_schemes</property> contains
                            <emphasis>digest</emphasis>
                        </entry>

                        <entry>
                            Sets the number of seconds for which the nonce is valid. See notes
                            below.
                        </entry>
                    </row>

                    <row>
                        <entry><emphasis><property>proxy_auth</property></emphasis></entry>
                        <entry>No</entry>

                        <entry>
                            Disabled by default. Enable to perform Proxy authentication, instead
                            of normal origin server authentication.
                        </entry>
                    </row>
                </tbody>
            </tgroup>
        </table>

        <note>
            <para>
                The current implementation of the <property>nonce_timeout</property> has some
                interesting side effects. This setting is supposed to determine the valid lifetime
                of a given nonce, or effectively how long a client's authentication information is
                accepted. Currently, if it's set to 3600 (for example), it will cause the adapter
                to prompt the client for new credentials every hour, on the hour. This will be
                resolved in a future release, once nonce tracking and stale support are
                implemented.
            </para>
        </note>
    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="zend.auth.adapter.http.resolvers">
        <title>Resolvers</title>

        <para>
            The resolver's job is to take a username and realm, and return some kind of credential
            value. Basic authentication expects to receive the Base64 encoded version of the user's
            password. Digest authentication expects to receive a hash of the user's username, the
            realm, and their password (each separated by colons). Currently, the only supported
            hash algorithm is <acronym>MD5</acronym>.
        </para>

        <para>
            <classname>Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http</classname> relies on objects implementing
            <classname>Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http_Resolver_Interface</classname>. A text file resolver
            class is included with this adapter, but any other kind of resolver can be created
            simply by implementing the resolver interface.
        </para>

        <sect3 id="zend.auth.adapter.http.resolvers.file">
            <title>File Resolver</title>

            <para>
                The file resolver is a very simple class. It has a single property specifying a
                filename, which can also be passed to the constructor. Its
                <methodname>resolve()</methodname> method walks through the text file, searching
                for a line with a matching username and realm. The text file format similar to
                Apache htpasswd files:
            </para>

            <programlisting language="txt"><![CDATA[
<username>:<realm>:<credentials>\n
]]></programlisting>

            <para>
                Each line consists of three fields - username, realm, and credentials - each
                separated by a colon. The credentials field is opaque to the file resolver; it
                simply returns that value as-is to the caller. Therefore, this same file format
                serves both Basic and Digest authentication. In Basic authentication, the
                credentials field should be written in clear text. In Digest authentication, it
                should be the <acronym>MD5</acronym> hash described above.
            </para>

            <para>
                There are two equally easy ways to create a File resolver:
            </para>

            <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
$path     = 'files/passwd.txt';
$resolver = new Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http_Resolver_File($path);
]]></programlisting>

            <para>
                or
            </para>

            <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
$path     = 'files/passwd.txt';
$resolver = new Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http_Resolver_File();
$resolver->setFile($path);
]]></programlisting>

            <para>
                If the given path is empty or not readable, an exception is thrown.
            </para>
        </sect3>
    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="zend.auth.adapter.http.basic_usage">
        <title>Basic Usage</title>

        <para>
            First, set up an array with the required configuration values:
        </para>

        <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
$config = array(
    'accept_schemes' => 'basic digest',
    'realm'          => 'My Web Site',
    'digest_domains' => '/members_only /my_account',
    'nonce_timeout'  => 3600,
);
]]></programlisting>

        <para>
            This array will cause the adapter to accept either Basic or Digest authentication, and
            will require authenticated access to all the areas of the site under
            <filename>/members_only</filename> and <filename>/my_account</filename>. The realm
            value is usually displayed by the browser in the password dialog box. The
            <property>nonce_timeout</property>, of course, behaves as described above.
        </para>

        <para>
            Next, create the <classname>Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http</classname> object:
        </para>

        <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
$adapter = new Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http($config);
]]></programlisting>

        <para>
            Since we're supporting both Basic and Digest authentication, we need two different
            resolver objects. Note that this could just as easily be two different classes:
        </para>

        <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
$basicResolver = new Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http_Resolver_File();
$basicResolver->setFile('files/basicPasswd.txt');

$digestResolver = new Zend_Auth_Adapter_Http_Resolver_File();
$digestResolver->setFile('files/digestPasswd.txt');

$adapter->setBasicResolver($basicResolver);
$adapter->setDigestResolver($digestResolver);
]]></programlisting>

        <para>
            Finally, we perform the authentication. The adapter needs a reference to both the
            Request and Response objects in order to do its job:
        </para>

        <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
assert($request instanceof Zend_Controller_Request_Http);
assert($response instanceof Zend_Controller_Response_Http);

$adapter->setRequest($request);
$adapter->setResponse($response);

$result = $adapter->authenticate();
if (!$result->isValid()) {
    // Bad userame/password, or canceled password prompt
}
]]></programlisting>
    </sect2>
</sect1>
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