dbmmanage(1)                                         dbmmanage(1)

NAME
       dbmmanage - Create and update user authentication files in
       DBM format

SYNOPSIS
       dbmmanage filename [ command ] [ username [ encpasswd ] ]

DESCRIPTION
       dbmmanage is used to create  and  update  the  DBM  format
       files  used  to  store  usernames  and  password for basic
       authentication of HTTP users.   Resources  available  from
       the  httpd Apache web server can be restricted to just the
       users listed in the files created by dbmmanage.  This pro-
       gram  can  only be used when the usernames are stored in a
       DBM file. To use a flat-file database see htpasswd.

       This manual page only lists the  command  line  arguments.
       For  details of the directives necessary to configure user
       authentication in httpd see the Apache  manual,  which  is
       part  of  the  Apache  distribution  or  can  be  found at
       http://www.apache.org/.

OPTIONS
       filename
              The filename of the DBM format file. Usually  with-
              out the extension .db, .pag, or .dir.

       command
              This selects the operation to perform:

       add         Adds  an  entry for username to filename using
                   the encrypted password encpassword.

       adduser     Asks for a password and then adds an entry for
                   username to filename .

       check       Asks  for  a password and then checks if user-
                   name is  in  filename  and  if  it's  password
                   matches the specified one.

       delete      Deletes the username entry from filename.

       import      Reads username:password entries (one per line)
                   from STDIN and  adds  them  to  filename.  The
                   passwords already has to be crypted.

       update      Same  as the "adduser" command, except that it
                   makes sure username already  exists  in  file-
                   name.

       view        Just displays the complete contents of the DBM
                   file.

       username    The user for which  the  update  operation  is
                   performed.

BUGS
       One  should  be aware that there are a number of different
       DBM file formats in existance, and  with  all  likelihood,
       libraries  for more than one format may exist on your sys-
       tem.  The three primary examples are NDBM,  the  GNU  pro-
       ject's  GDBM, and Berkeley DB 2.  Unfortunately, all these
       libraries use different file formats, and  you  must  make
       sure  that  the  file  format used by filename is the same
       format that dbmmanage expects to see.  dbmmanage currently
       has  no  way  of  determining  what type of DBM file it is
       looking at.  If used against the wrong format, will simply
       return  nothing, or may create a different DBM file with a
       different name, or at worst, it may corrupt the  DBM  file
       if you were attempting to write to it.

       dbmmanage has a list of DBM format preferences, defined by
       the @AnyDBM::ISA array near the beginning of the  program.
       Since  we  prefer the Berkeley DB 2 file format, the order
       in which dbmmanage  will  look  for  system  libraries  is
       Berkeley  DB  2,  then  NDBM,  and  then  GDBM.  The first
       library found will be the library dbmmanage  will  attempt
       to  use  for  all DBM file transactions.  This ordering is
       slightly different than the standard @AnyDBM::ISA ordering
       in  perl,  as  well  as  the  ordering  used by the simple
       dbmopen() call in Perl, so if you use any other  utilities
       to manage your DBM files, they must also follow this pref-
       erence ordering.  Similar care must be taken if using pro-
       grams in other languages, like C, to access these files.

       Apache's mod_auth_db.c module corresponds to Berkeley DB 2
       library, while  mod_auth_dbm.c  corresponds  to  the  NDBM
       library.   Also, one can usually use the file program sup-
       plied with most Unix systems to see what format a DBM file
       is in.

SEE ALSO
       httpd(8)

                            March 1998                          1