Tomas Doran > Catalyst-Authentication-Credential-HTTP-1.016 > Catalyst::Authentication::Credential::HTTP



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Module Version: 1.016   Source  




    use Catalyst qw/

    __PACKAGE__->config( authentication => {
        default_realm => 'example',
        realms => {
            example => {
                credential => {
                    class => 'HTTP',
                    type  => 'any', # or 'digest' or 'basic'
                    password_type  => 'clear',
                    password_field => 'password'
                store => {
                    class => 'Minimal',
                    users => {

    sub foo : Local {
        my ( $self, $c ) = @_;

        $c->authenticate({}, "example");
        # either user gets authenticated or 401 is sent
        # Note that the authentication realm sent to the client (in the
        # RFC 2617 sense) is overridden here, but this *does not*
        # effect the Catalyst::Authentication::Realm used for
        # authentication - to do that, you need
        # $c->authenticate({}, 'otherrealm')


    sub always_auth : Local {
        my ( $self, $c ) = @_;

        # Force authorization headers onto the response so that the user
        # is asked again for authentication, even if they successfully
        # authenticated.
        my $realm = $c->get_auth_realm('example');
        $realm->credential->authorization_required_response($c, $realm);

    # with ACL plugin
    __PACKAGE__->deny_access_unless("/path", sub { $_[0]->authenticate });








new $config, $c, $realm

Simple constructor.


Validates that $config is ok.

authenticate $c, $realm, \%auth_info

Tries to authenticate the user, and if that fails calls authorization_required_response and detaches the current action call stack.



The %auth_info hash can contain a number of keys which control the authentication behaviour:


Sets the HTTP authentication realm presented to the client. Note this does not alter the Catalyst::Authentication::Realm object used for the authentication.


Array reference to domains used to build the authorization headers.

This list of domains defines the protection space. If a domain URI is an absolute path (starts with /), it is relative to the root URL of the server being accessed. An absolute URI in this list may refer to a different server than the one being accessed.

The client will use this list to determine the set of URIs for which the same authentication information may be sent.

If this is omitted or its value is empty, the client will assume that the protection space consists of all URIs on the responding server.

Therefore, if your application is not hosted at the root of this domain, and you want to prevent the authentication credentials for this application being sent to any other applications. then you should use the use_uri_for configuration option, and pass a domain of /.

authenticate_basic $c, $realm, \%auth_info

Performs HTTP basic authentication.

authenticate_digest $c, $realm, \%auth_info

Performs HTTP digest authentication.

The password_type must be clear for digest authentication to succeed. If you do not want to store your user passwords as clear text, you may instead store the MD5 digest in hex of the string '$username:$realm:$password'.

Catalyst::Plugin::Cache is used for persistent storage of the nonce values (see "Nonce"). It must be loaded in your application, unless you override the store_digest_authorization_nonce and get_digest_authorization_nonce methods as shown below.

Takes an additional parameter of algorithm, the possible values of which are 'MD5' (the default) and 'MD5-sess'. For more information about 'MD5-sess', see section in RFC 2617.

authorization_required_response $c, $realm, \%auth_info


Typically used by authenticate, but may be invoked manually.

%opts can contain domain and algorithm, which are used to build %the digest header.

store_digest_authorization_nonce $c, $key, $nonce
get_digest_authorization_nonce $c, $key




Sets the 401 response and calls $ctx->detach.


All configuration is stored in YourApp->config('Plugin::Authentication' => { yourrealm => { credential => { class => 'HTTP', %config } } }.




This controls authorization_required_response and authenticate, but not the "manual" methods.


Set this to a string to override the default body content "Authorization required.", or set to undef to suppress body content being generated.


The type of password returned by the user object. Same usage as in Catalyst::Authentication::Credential::Password


The name of accessor used to retrieve the value of the password field from the user object. Same usage as in Catalyst::Authentication::Credential::Password


The field name that the user's username is mapped into when finding the user from the realm. Defaults to 'username'.


If this configuration key has a true value, then the domain(s) for the authorization header will be run through $c->uri_for(). Use this configuration option if your application is not running at the root of your domain, and you want to ensure that authentication credentials from your application are not shared with other applications on the same server.


If this configuration key has a true value then authentication will be denied (and a 401 issued in normal circumstances) unless the request is via https.


Causes authentication to fail as normal modules do, without calling $c->detach. This means that the basic auth credential can be used as part of the progressive realm.

However use like this is probably not optimum it also means that users in browsers ill never get a HTTP authenticate dialogue box (unless you manually return a 401 response in your application), and even some automated user agents (for APIs) will not send the Authorization header without specific manipulation of the request headers.


Enables support for .NET (or other similarly broken clients), which fails to include the query string in the uri in the digest Authorization header, contrary to rfc2617.

This option has no effect on clients that include the query string; they will continue to work as normal.




Updated to current name space and currently maintained by: Tomas Doran

Original module by:

Yuval Kogman,
Jess Robinson
Sascha Kiefer


Patches contributed by:

Peter Corlett
Devin Austin (dhoss)
Ronald J Kimball




        Copyright (c) 2005-2008 the aforementioned authors. All rights
        reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute
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