Re: Re: Digest Authentication

Hello, On 08/22/2002 07:44 PM, Chris Shiflett wrote:

Manuel Lemos wrote:

NTLM is based on exchanging digest messages. It is not supported just by Microsoft products. There is even an Apache NTLM authentication module for Unix/Linux. Mozilla/Netscape 6/7 support NTLM.

The only Apache support I know of is mod_ntlm (http://sourceforge.net/projects/modntlm/). As I understand, this module

There are versions for Apache under Unix and under Windows. Besides that there are Perl based NTLM authentication modules, not to mention support for Java and Python. Only support for PHP seems to not be available. That seems to be due to the fact that the code is based on libsmbclient that is only available under GPL and GPL code is not accepted for PHP because of the contagious aspect of GPL license.

is very untested and unused. I'm not aware of support in either Netscape 6/7 or Mozilla. Care to give a reference?

http://www.mozilla.org/status/2002-08-21.html

Anyway, PHP is not an anti-Microsoft thing regardless what some PHP users or developers think. PHP has a lot to gain in working with Microsoft products because many users have choosen such products, whether you like it or not. As a matter of fact, in a recent poll that is still running, 53% of the inquired develoipers use Windows as their production environment to run PHP applications. In some countries the rate is even much higher. There is a great demand for NTLM authentication among Windows PHP users because that lets user login in Web applications without having to enter their credentials again after already having done so in the Windows logon. That is why I asked if was that the orginal poster could be asking. I do not use or recommend Windows, but I wish some PHP people stop being so stupidly against Microsoft products because that is like shooting yourself in the feet as more and more of the remaining PHP jobs are Windows based.

I'm not sure where you get the anti-Microsoft sentiment. Microsoft simply doesn't make a habit of using open standards or opening their own (NTLM, for example). Thus, one can logically conclude that support for Microsoft technologies traditionally lies largely in Microsoft products alone. Yes, there are exceptions (Samba), but no one suggested that NTLM was *only* supported by Microsoft products.

Read your own line:

NTLM authentication is a Microsoft thing and as such is supported by Microsoft products and pretty much no one else.

If you wish to refute this, please give us a reference to the NTLM specification.

http://www.innovation.ch/java/ntlm.html -- Regards, Manuel Lemos