Question

Apache Basic vs. Digest authentication?

Asked by: sopiaz57

whats the difference?

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Asked On
2003-08-19 at 10:41:49ID20714088
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basic

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Answers

 

by: periwinklePosted on 2003-08-20 at 11:04:27ID: 9190073

Basic authentication uses passwords which are passed over the internet as uuencoded information.  While this means that the information doesn't pass over the internet as plain text,  someone watching the packet traffic could decode it if they saw the right packet.

Digest authentication is a newer standard based on MD5 authentication, and instead of passing the password over the internet, it generates a hash of information and creates a 'digest' that is passed over the network.  This 'digest' is used with the server  to test against the saved digest.  

While digest security is more secure across the network, it requires that  the digest is decodable, unlike the crypt methodology used for basic authentication (which is 'one way' encryption - you can't decode it).  Therefore, the server security becomes even more important.  From what I understand, it isn't necessarily trivial to set up MD5 encryption on the server.  

I think that the browser must support MD5 encryption as well - while almost all (if not all) browsers support basic crypt() based authentication, I don't believe that all support MD5 encryption.

Some more information on this:

http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs/tutorials/user.html
http://www.apacheweek.com/features/userauth

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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