HTTP Basic Authentication against vB-Accounts

Seeing all those "user integration" requests over and over again I made a small "hack" (not really as no tables, templates or files are modified ) that might be useful if you want to give access to non-forum content based on forum accounts:

HTTP Basic Authentication against vB user table
------------------------------------------------

This "hack" allows you to use HTTP Basic authentication
(password protected directories) based upon vB accounts.

Update Version 0.2
------------------
I've added a configuration option to the .htaccess so
you can specify which usergroup (only one for the moment)
you want to grant access.
If you don't need this feature just leave the line commented out.

Requirements
------------
- vBulletin 3 (at least the user table)
- Apache/mod_perl compiled with support for PerlAuthenHandler
- Basic Authentication feature enabled to be used in .htaccess

Installation
------------
1) Edit vBAuth.pm, fill in the configuration settings (database, etc.)
2) Put vBAuth.pm in your Perl Apache-Moduls directoy
3) (Optional) Edit .htaccess to meet your requirements
4) Put .htaccess in the directory you want to protect

[Andreas]

Yes, root access is required.

> Using whereis apache it shows the /usr/local/apache
That's apache itself

Try

find / -name Apache

Does that give you any direcory within the perl root? If so put it there.
If not create a directory called Apache within the perl includes search path and put it there.

> I've tried both but I got internal error, hmn...
What's in error.log?

[Nam]

I see the Apache dir in /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/Apache then I use wget www.mysite.com/vBAuth.pm.

But then when I uploaded the .htaccess to the folder I want to protect, I got an error:

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@mysite.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

my apache version is 1.3.29 and I did change database configuration in vBAuth.pm.

[Andreas]

So once again:
What error-messages do appear in error.log (don't know the path on your system - might be /var/log/httpd/error.log or smth. like that)?

[Nam]

The reason I didn't post error.log because I didn know where is that file , and now knowing and seeing the location /var/log/httpd but it's empty in that folder. Should I give up? It's such a great hack for many features in my board.

[Andreas]

Hmm ... must be somewhere

The location of the error logs is defined in httpd.conf, but where your httpd.conf resides ... don't know, maybe /etc/apache/httpd.conf

If not try
find / -name httpd.conf
to lookup where httpd.conf is

Or directly search for error.log
find / -name error.log

[dontpanic]

OK...if I am running Apache locally, where does this need to go to work?

[Andreas]

You must put vBAuth.pm in your Perl Apache-Modules directory.

[dontpanic]

Heh, I'll have to look into that more, not sure that even exists yet.

[dontpanic]

KirbyDE, do you have any suggestions or ideas on alternative ways to achieve basic authentication against the vB user table. I don't think the module way is going to work out for us...but it is a cool hack none the less.

[Chrissicom]

is there any way to make this hack IIS compatible, or is there a similar IIS compatible hack?? .htaccess is useless on IIS.