Can I authenticate users/groups based on MySQL?

Not directly, although it is very easy to do.

We deliberately do not compile mSQL/MySQL libraries into our server core; instead we take a philosophy of writing high-speed APIs that make this easy.

What Authentication Modules are available?

To construct a custom Authentication Module, look at the authorization part of our distributed module and write a C or Perl program that reads the URL and client IP address/name, and writes back a message to say either "yes", "no", or "prompt for password".

This will require some programming on your part (with which we are happy to assist you if you wish), but the end result will perform very well. This approach also has the advantage of allowing you to run the authorizer program on a separate machine, which will give you the potential to improve security.

A good example of the above is if you had firewalled your servers so that the publicly-accessible machines could run CGIs. As they cannot directly access a database that is situated on the other side of the firewall, they simply query a machine which has been allowed access through your firewall to your database server.

Content Manager [Administrator] 19 September 2005