Webmaster in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Name

Authorization

Synopsis

Authorization: scheme credentials

Description

Provides the client’s authorization to access data at a URI. When a requested document requires authorization, the server returns a WWW-Authenticate header describing the type of authorization required. The client then repeats the request with the proper authorization information.

The authorization scheme generally used in HTTP is BASIC, and under the BASIC scheme the credentials follow the format username:password encoded in base64. For example, for the username “webmaster” and a password “zrma4v,” the authorization header would look like this:

Authorization: BASIC d2VibWFzdGVyOnpycW1hNHY=

The value decodes into webmaster:zrma4v.