adding support for user authentication within Mapserver for GetCapablities and GetMap

[Sean Gillies]

No, Tom. This is bad practice. An anti-pattern. Best practice is to use 
your web server's authentication and authorization systems. They are 
developed by people who have multi-million dollar businesses on the 
line, are well tested, and performant.

Sean

Kralidis,Tom [Burlington] wrote:
> =20
> In addition, one can use mapscript WxS to intercept a request and, say, =
> authenticate and process accordingly.
> =20
> Check out http://www.geoxacml.org as an OGC-ish way extending the OASIS =
> XACML spec.
> =20
> ..Tom
> =20
> =20
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: UMN MapServer Users List on behalf of Gregor Mosheh
> Sent: Fri 31-Aug-07 14:58
> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] adding support for user =
> authentication within Mapserver for GetCapablities and GetMap
> 
> 
> 
> John Mitchell wrote:
>> How would I add support for user authentication within Mapserver for
>> GetCapablities and GetMap?
> 
> Sean's answer is basially right: You don't. Security is the webserver's
> job, and not Mapserver's. In fact, none of the OGC WxS standards
> supports security; they assume that the webserver has already done such
> things before calling the application.
> 
> You would have to password protect the mapserv binary or the cgi-bin
> directory which houses it, not just the one app nor just those functions
> or layers.
> 
> I have often wondered why the OGC standards left out such a basic
> concept as access control. Mysteries of the universe.
> 
> --
> Gregor Mosheh / Greg Allensworth
> System Administrator, HostGIS cartographic development & hosting =
> services
> http://www.HostGIS.com/
> 
> "Remember that no one cares if you can back up,
>   only if you can restore." - AMANDA
>