Managing Users

To use user authentication, you'll need to edit and manage user files and group files.

Using htpasswd to manage user files

To deal with user files, we provide a program in the support directory of the distribution called htpasswd. Usage:

htpasswd [-c] file user

The -c, if present, tells htpasswd to create a new passwd file of the specified name instead of editing an old one. file is the pathname of the user file you wish to edit. The user parameter is the name of the user you wish to add or edit.

If htpasswd finds the user you specified, it will ask you to change the user's password. Type the new password (it will ask twice). httpd will then update the file.

If htpasswd doesn't find the specified user, it will ask you to give the user an initial password.

Group files

The format of the group file is as follows:

groupname: member1 member2 ...

Or, each line contains the name of a group, and a list of members separated by spaces.

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