dbmmanage

dbmmanage(1)                                                      dbmmanage(1)



NAME
       dbmmanage - Create and update user authentication files in DBM format

SYNOPSIS
       dbmmanage filename [ command ] [ username [ encpasswd ] ]


DESCRIPTION
       dbmmanage  is  used  to  create and update the DBM format files used to
       store usernames and password for basic authentication  of  HTTP  users.
       Resources  available from the httpd Apache web server can be restricted
       to just the users listed in the files created by dbmmanage.  This  pro-
       gram  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 Apache manual, which is part of the Apache distribution or  can  be
       found at http://www.apache.org/.

OPTIONS
       filename
              The  filename of the DBM format file. Usually without the exten-
              sion .db, .pag, or .dir.

       command
              This selects the operation to perform:

       add         Adds an entry for username to filename using the  encrypted
                   password encpassword.

       adduser     Asks  for a password and then adds an entry for username to
                   filename .

       check       Asks for a password and then checks if username is in file-
                   name and if it's password matches the specified one.

       delete      Deletes the username entry from filename.

       import      Reads  username:password  entries (one per line) from STDIN
                   and adds them to filename. The passwords already has to  be
                   crypted.

       update      Same  as  the  "adduser" command, except that it makes sure
                   username already exists in filename.

       view        Just displays the complete contents of the DBM file.

       username    The user for which the update operation is performed.

BUGS
       One should be aware that there are a number of different DBM file  for-
       mats in existence, and with all likelihood, libraries for more than one
       format may exist on your system.  The three primary examples are  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  @Any-
       DBM::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, and then GDBM.  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.

       Apache's mod_auth_dbm.c corresponds to the NDBM library.  Also, one can
       usually  use  the  file  program supplied with most Unix systems to see
       what format a DBM file is in.

SEE ALSO
       httpd(8)



                                  March 1998                      dbmmanage(1)