NAME¶
dbmmanage - Manage user authentication files in DBM format
SYNOPSIS¶
dbmmanage [
encoding ]
filename
add|adduser|check|delete|update
username [
encpasswd [
group[,
group...] [
comment ] ] ]
dbmmanage filename view [
username ]
dbmmanage filename import
SUMMARY¶
dbmmanage is used to create and update the DBM format files used to store
usernames and password for basic authentication of HTTP users via
mod_authn_dbm. Resources available from the Apache HTTP server can be
restricted to just the users listed in the files created by dbmmanage. This
program can only be used when the usernames are stored in a DBM file. To use a
flat-file database see htpasswd.
This manual page only lists the command line arguments. For details of the
directives necessary to configure user authentication in httpd see the httpd
manual, which is part of the Apache distribution or can be found at
http://httpd.apache.org/.
OPTIONS¶
- filename
- The filename of the DBM format file. Usually without the
extension .db, .pag, or .dir.
- username
- The user for which the operations are performed. The
username may not contain a colon (:).
- encpasswd
- This is the already encrypted password to use for the
update and add commands. You may use a hyphen (-) if you want to get
prompted for the password, but fill in the fields afterwards. Additionally
when using the update command, a period (.) keeps the original password
untouched.
- group
- A group, which the user is member of. A groupname may not
contain a colon (:). You may use a hyphen (-) if you don't want to assign
the user to a group, but fill in the comment field. Additionally when
using the update command, a period (.) keeps the original groups
untouched.
- comment
- This is the place for your opaque comments about the user,
like realname, mailaddress or such things. The server will ignore this
field.
Encodings¶
- -d
- crypt encryption (default, except on Win32, Netware)
- -m
- MD5 encryption (default on Win32, Netware)
- -s
- SHA1 encryption
- -p
- plaintext (not recommended)
Commands¶
- add
- Adds an entry for username to filename using
the encrypted password encpasswd. dbmmanage passwords.dat add
rbowen foKntnEF3KSXA
- adduser
- Asks for a password and then adds an entry for
username to filename. dbmmanage passwords.dat adduser
krietz
- check
- Asks for a password and then checks if username is
in filename and if it's password matches the specified one.
dbmmanage passwords.dat check rbowen
- delete
- Deletes the username entry from filename.
dbmmanage passwords.dat delete rbowen
- import
- Reads username:password entries (one per
line) from STDIN and adds them to filename. The passwords already
have to be crypted.
- update
- Same as the adduser command, except that it makes sure
username already exists in filename. dbmmanage passwords.dat
update rbowen
- view
- Just displays the contents of the DBM file. If you specify
a username, it displays the particular record only. dbmmanage
passwords.dat view
BUGS¶
One should be aware that there are a number of different DBM file formats in
existence, and with all likelihood, libraries for more than one format may
exist on your system. The three primary examples are SDBM, NDBM, the GNU
project's GDBM, and Berkeley DB 2. Unfortunately, all these libraries use
different file formats, and you must make sure that the file format used by
filename is the same format that dbmmanage expects to see. dbmmanage
currently has no way of determining what type of DBM file it is looking at. If
used against the wrong format, will simply return nothing, or may create a
different DBM file with a different name, or at worst, it may corrupt the DBM
file if you were attempting to write to it.
dbmmanage has a list of DBM format preferences, defined by the @AnyDBM::ISA
array near the beginning of the program. Since we prefer the Berkeley DB 2
file format, the order in which dbmmanage will look for system libraries is
Berkeley DB 2, then NDBM, then GDBM and then SDBM. The first library found
will be the library dbmmanage will attempt to use for all DBM file
transactions. This ordering is slightly different than the standard
@AnyDBM::ISA ordering in Perl, as well as the ordering used by the simple
dbmopen() call in Perl, so if you use any other utilities to manage your DBM
files, they must also follow this preference ordering. Similar care must be
taken if using programs in other languages, like C, to access these files.
One can usually use the file program supplied with most Unix systems to see what
format a DBM file is in.