PHP 5 Power Programming

11.4. Authentication

PEAR Auth is an abstracted authentication layer, with “containers” for interfacing with various authentication systems. It supports regular password files, databases accessed through DB or MDB, as well as IMAP, POP3, LDAP, RADIUS, SOAP, and Samba (Windows domain) logons.

11.4.1. Overview

The Auth package uses a POST request for passing usernames and passwords. The username and password are checked in a container object that implements the interface with the authentication back-end (such as a password file, a MySQL database, or an LDAP server). When login succeeds, Auth uses sessions to keep track of the user. In practice, the PHP session works as an authentication ticket, which is a single piece of information that gives ...