How it works

The Auth DBAPI module deals with two phases of Apache's processing sequence. The Authorization and Authentication phases. Users of the Auth DBAPI module can use either or both of these phases.

Authentication

The following steps are taken when authenticating a user:

Authorization

For authentication in Apache to occur, either the httpd.conf file or the .htaccess files must have a require directive specified. Require directives usually look like:
require user jtravis
or
require valid-user
or
require group boffo
If the argument to require is either "user" or "valid-user", Apache's mod_auth will take care of authenticating the user. However, for checking group validity, Auth DBAPI can be used to look up a users's groups in the database. These are the steps taken: