Question User Registration and Authentication

[fayer]

Server operating system version

Ubuntu 20.04

Plesk version and microupdate number

not visible in my version : O

Hello im quite inexperienced with this so i hope my question makes sense ,

i am building a website using plesk and php and need a user management page where it is possible for a admin to create new user or new admins directly from the website. Currently, authentication is implemented using HTTP Basic Authentication with an .htpasswd file. However, my client would like to transition to a solution where user and admin accounts can be stored in a database table and managed (added, deleted, etc.) through a PHP page on the website. Normally i would just download the sw-nginx-module-auth-pam module but this didnt work in this application as i cannot find a compatible module, i even tryed to recompile manually nginx with the module source code but couldnt reach a result where it works , am i missing a easier solution to my problem?is it all possible to do this ?

atm im considering to move everything on a bare metal solution im familiar with but that would be a great amount of effort

any help is greatly appreciated

 

[Kaspar]

I suspect that using basic authentication with a database backend in nginx might require you to (re)compile nginx with additional modules. There is an old thread outlining how you can compile and use nginx with additional modules. Alternatively you could write a script that reads and writes users to your .htpasswd file. You don't necessarily need a database to mange user authentication. (I think this PHP class can help you accomplish this).

However, if you don't object to using Apache instead, the mod_authn_dbd module is enabled by default on Plesk. You only need to add the example configuration below to the Additional Apache directives of the domain (and create a database, with a user table and database user of course).

DBDriver mysql
DBDParams "host=localhost dbname=<name of database> user=<name of database user> pass=<database user password>"

DBDMin  4
DBDKeep 8
DBDMax  20
DBDExptime 300

<Directory /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs>
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Registered User"

AuthDBDUserPWQuery "SELECT password FROM `users` WHERE `user` = %s"
</Directory>

Another option, since you mentioned using PHP, could be to use an PHP framework, like Laravel for example, and manage to whole authentication/login process trough the framework.

 

[fayer]

I suspect that using basic authentication with a database backend in nginx might require you to (re)compile nginx with additional modules. There is an old thread outlining how you can compile and use nginx with additional modules. Alternatively you could write a script that reads and writes users to your .htpasswd file. You don't necessarily need a database to mange user authentication. (I think this PHP class can help you accomplish this).

However, if you don't object to using Apache instead, the mod_authn_dbd module is enabled by default on Plesk. You only need to add the example configuration below to the Additional Apache directives of the domain (and create a database, with a user table and database user of course).

DBDriver mysql
DBDParams "host=localhost dbname=<name of database> user=<name of database user> pass=<database user password>"

DBDMin  4
DBDKeep 8
DBDMax  20
DBDExptime 300

<Directory /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs>
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Registered User"

AuthDBDUserPWQuery "SELECT password FROM `users` WHERE `user` = %s"
</Directory>

Another option, since you mentioned using PHP, could be to use an PHP framework, like Laravel for example, and manage to whole authentication/login process trough the framework.

thank you , the classes for writing in the htpasswd where very useful and using groups with basic auth solved all my problems : )