As a professional web server admin, I'm not a big fan of using cookies to perform authentication/admission control.

If you are using Apache (and if you aren't, you have no hope of secure webservers anyway), you can block access using an .htaccess file or by specifying in the Directory tag in the httpd.conf file. It is very simple to setup "accounts" using a www_passwd file and www_group file. You can even (if using SSL) create the www_passwd file and synchronize it with your /etc/passwd file at set time periods so that there isn't a chance of your web accounts and system accounts passwords from becoming unsynchronized.

Anyone have any different thoughts on using cookies for admission control? I have always thought it better to use a DB oriented access method.

Look into Chapter 5 of the Appaloosa book. Good stuff. I may even post my password syncing script to the snippet section.

J. J. Horner

Linux, Perl, Apache, Stronghold, Unix

jhorner@knoxlug.org http://www.knoxlug.org

In reply to RE: mmmmm .. cookies by jjhorner
in thread mmmmm .. cookies by daemonchild

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