johnnywang has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have some static contents in a folder that I'd like to give user access to after they login. This is easy with htaccess. The problem is that I already have a login page, where I store some user information in the CGI::Session. For this particular directory of static contents, I'd like to check whether the user is logged in by checking the CGI::Session, and allow the user to read the files (could be different types: .pdf, .xls, .doc, etc.) if they are already logged in, otherwise send them to the login page. I used to do this in java, where I just write a servlet filter. Can I do this in perl? a simple cgi script, or a mod_perl? Thanks.
  • Comment on Protecting static contents in Apache with perl/mod_perl

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Re: Protecting static contents in Apache with perl/mod_perl
by perrin (Chancellor) on Aug 20, 2005 at 17:58 UTC
    The equivalent in mod_perl would probably be a PerlAccessHandler or an Authen/Authz handler. There are extensive docs about this on the mod_perl site, and many examples on CPAN.
[reply]
      perrin is right on the money. Here is some code from a PerlAuthenHandler I wrote that uses CGI::Session. (I deleted some of the irrelevant details but this shows how it can be done.) 

      
sub redir_auth {
    my $r = shift;
    $r->status( REDIRECT );
    $r->header_out( Location => '/login.cgi?'  );
    return REDIRECT;
}

sub handler {
    my $r = shift;
    my $apr = Apache::Request->new( $r );
    my $q = CGI->new;

    # let through if we're trying to login
    return OK if $r->uri =~ /login.cgi$/;

    # block if no session cookie or query
    my $asid = $q->cookie( 'asid' ) || $apr->param( 'asid' ) || 0;
    return redir_auth( $r ) unless $asid;

    # if we have a valid session, let the request pass through
    my $session = Alex::Session->new( $q );
    $session->expire('+1h');
    return OK if $session->param( "logged_in" );

    # default
    return redir_auth( $r );
}

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