I am protecting a series of pdf files with http basic authenication using a htaccess file. Currently I have users click a link that links to a perl script in a password protected directory. This forces them to login and then the perl script redirects them to the correct pdf file based on their username. All of the pdf files are username.pdf.

What I really want is them to type in their username and password into a html form and this form to pass the values to some script that could redirect them and send username and password data to htaccess so that they are automatically authenicated. Is this possible?

I know how to write a perl script to redirect them based off a html form inputted username but I do not know how to pass the values to http authentication.

Thanks.

just a thought but, why not have the perl script just write the file back to the user (avoid the whole htaccess bit altogether)

OTOH, if you do want to continue down this path....
have the perl 302 redirect send them to the htaccess controlled file like this:

http://username:password@pleasedontbugme.com/foo.pdf

How about this:

RewriteRule (.*\.pdf)$ auth.cgi?pdf=$1

Then auth.cgi would check to see if the user is logged in, and if so, it would send the PDF headers and output the document.

Originally Posted by willcode4beer

just a thought but, why not have the perl script just write the file back to the user (avoid the whole htaccess bit altogether)

+1

Put the PDF files in an unaccessible directory, then just spit the file out:

#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Content-type: application/pdf\n\n";
open(FILE, "somefile.pdf") or die ("Cannot open file");
@data = <FILE>;
close(FILE);
foreach $line (@data) { print $line; }

Whoohoo, hey, look at that !
Comprehensible Perl code !

A true wonder of the world...
Tried to add TP, but could not. I have to "spread some more" before, but I needed to say that

lol I try.

Is there anyway to do something similar in PHP?

PHP Code:

<?php

   header("Content-type: application/pdf");   
   echo file_get_contents("somefile.pdf");

?>

Thank you to all of you. I cannot thank you enough. I have searched the web and have not found a solution until you guys answered my question.