From the CGI.pm pod

remote_user()
Return the authorization/verification name used for user verification,
+ if this script is protected.
user_name()
Attempt to obtain the remote user's name, using a variety of different
+ techniques. 
This only works with older browsers such as Mosaic. Newer browsers do 
+not report the user name for privacy reasons!
[download]

You can however use other user ID's, such as the HTTP basic authentication user id (the one you fill in when you go to a web page that asks for your username and password with a pop up box - usually). Look to BrowserUK's post above for information on how to get that userID using the cgi module. You also have to configure your web server for basic authentication. See the Apache documentation.

CU
Robartes-

Dear AnonyMonk,

In your script, get the ip address or the DHCP name of the machine making a request. Pass that value to nbtstat using the correct flag (-a or -A for DHCP or IP, respectively) and capture the output.

nbtstat will return the username, computer name and the workgroup/domain name of the computer you specified.

Also, please sign up for Perl Monks. It's free, and it allows us to get in contact with you much more easily. If you have any further questions, sign up and post. :)

Hope this helps, and good luck!

John J Reiser
newrisedesigns.com

I know that the original post referred to Apache on NT4, however if you're running a UNIX server (and so do not have access to the nbtstat command), there is a similar program called NBTScan which compiles on both UNIX and Windows.

It is available from http://www.inetcat.org/software/nbtscan.html. This page also links to a Perl version of the program which runs under UNIX (but requires Samba nmblookup utility to be installed).

JJ

I recall this exact problem (or close enough) was asked on ActiveState's ActivePerl mailing list recently. In general I remember seeing some things where the MS IE client has some MS-only way of communicating it's identity to the server but only if you do some Microsoft thing. It sounds like a neat idea but I'm not familiar enough to say exactly what that was. If no one here pulls up the answer I'd suggest asking over there. I think it might have required MS client and server and the perhaps IIS + ASP or something. There was probably also a hook into ActiveDirectory but... well I just don't remember. Either I'm conflating two threads or the final solution was not possible through perl.

__SIG__
printf "You are here %08x\n", unpack "L!", unpack "P4", pack "L!", B::svref_2object(sub{})->OUTSIDE

Now if you were using IIS it may be different

/me ducks. I know...I know. ;-)

If you use Integrated Authentication on IIS the user revealed by CGI::remote_user(); would be the OS username. Here is the code:

#!c:\perl\bin\perl.exe -w

use CGI;
my $username = CGI::remote_user();
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "<h3>Hello $username</h3>";
[download]

And here is the reply

Hello viper\blm