It often happens that even though you have passwords controlling the access to certain things on your site, you also want to allow guests to come and sample the site's joys -- probably a reduced set of joys, mediated by the username passed on by the client's browser. The Apache module mod_auth_anon.c allows you to do just this. It should be compiled in automatically -- check by looking at Configuration. If it wasn't compiled in, you may get this unnerving error message:
Invalid command Anonymous
when you try to exercise the Anonymous directive. The Config file, in ... /site.anon/conf/httpd.conf, is as follows:
User webuser Group webgroup ServerName www.butterthlies.com IdentityCheckon NameVirtualHost 192.168.123.2 <VirtualHost www.butterthlies.com> #CookieLog logs/cookies ServerAdmin sales@butterthlies.com DocumentRoot /usr/www/site.anon/htdocs/customers ServerName www.butterthlies.com ErrorLog /usr/www/site.anon/logs/customers/error_log TransferLog /usr/www/site.anon/logs/access_log ScriptAlias /cgi-bin /usr/www/cgi-bin </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost sales.butterthlies.com> CookieLog logs/cookies ServerAdmin sales_mgr@butterthlies.com DocumentRoot /usr/www/site.anon/htdocs/salesmen ServerName sales.butterthlies.com ErrorLog /usr/www/site.anon/logs/error_log TransferLog /usr/www/site.anon/logs/salesmen/access_log ScriptAlias /cgi-bin /usr/www/cgi-bin <Directory /usr/www/site.anon/htdocs/salesmen> AuthType Basic AuthName darkness AuthUserFile /usr/www/ok_users/sales AuthGroupFile /usr/www/ok_users/groups require valid-user Anonymous_Authoritative off Anonymous guest anonymous air-head </Directory> <Directory /usr/www/cgi-bin> AuthType Basic AuthName darkness AuthUserFile /usr/www/ok_users/sales AuthGroupFile /usr/www/ok_users/groups #AuthDBMUserFile /usr/www/ok_dbm/sales #AuthDBMGroupFile /usr/www/ok_dbm/groups require valid-user </Directory> </VirtualHost>
Run go and try accessing http://sales.butterthlies.com/. You should be asked for a password in the usual way. The difference is that now you can also get in by being guest, air-head , or anonymous. The Anonymous directives follow.
Anonymous userid1 userid2 ...
The user can log in as any user ID on the list, but must provide something in the password field unless that is switched off by another directive.
Anonymous_NoUserID [on|off] Default: off Directory, .htaccess
If on, users can leave the ID field blank but must put something in the password field.
Anonymous_LogEmail [on|off] Default: on Directory, .htaccess
If on, accesses are logged to ... /logs/httpd_log or to the log set by TransferLog.
Anonymous_VerifyEmail [on|off] Default: off Directory, .htaccess
The user ID must contain at least one "@" and one "."
Anonymous_Authoritative [on|off] Default: off Directory, .htaccess
If this directive is on and the client fails anonymous authorization, he fails all authorization. If it is off, other authorization schemes will get a crack at him.
Anonymous_MustGiveEmail [on|off] Default: on Directory, .htaccess
The user must give an email ID as a password.
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