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://httpd.apache.org/.


OPTIONS
       filename
	      The  filename of the DBM format file. Usually without the exten-
	      sion .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 username is in file-

		   name 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 filename.

       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  for-
       mats in existance, and with all likelihood, libraries for more than one
       format may exist on your system.  The three primary examples are  NDBM,
       the  GNU  project'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, dbmmanage
       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  @Any-
       DBM::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 preference  ordering.
       Similar	care  must be taken if using programs 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 supplied with most	Unix  systems  to  see
       what format a DBM file is in.

SEE ALSO
       httpd(8)



				 February 2004			  dbmmanage(1)

NAME - SYNOPSIS - DESCRIPTION - OPTIONS - BUGS - SEE ALSO -