Dalibor’s Blog

Apache, basic auth and mysql

Posted 1 year ago at 11:17 pm. 3 comments

Today i had some issues with mysql dbd module for apache.

I had two servers: One located in Slovenia and second located in US.
Imagine how rocket-fast this thing was, when i got 50 requests per page and all of them were authenticated via dbd mysql module.

So i decided to wrote my own script which will fetch all the users from database, convert their passwords with proper encryption and then put them into an .htpasswd file. Script will do this every few minutes.

Copy this code into your favorite nix editor, edit variables and save it on chosen location.

# Variables

define("DB_HOST", "localhost");
define("DB_USER", "htpasswd");
define("DB_PASS", "somepasswd");
define("DB_NAME", "htpasswd");
# data dir - for .htpasswd file
define("ROOTDIR", "/usr/local/www/htpasswd/");
# .htpasswd file - we will call this file from .htaccess
define("HTPASSWDFILE", ROOTDIR . ".htpasswd");
# tmp file for dumping data
define("HTPASSWDTMP", ROOTDIR . ".htpasswd.tmp");
# backup of previous .htpasswd file (if something's foo) 
define("HTPASSWDBAK", ROOTDIR . ".htpasswd.bak");

# maybe you would want to add some static users, 
# which will be here even if database is empty or there are no "valid" users in database.
$static_users = array(
        'staticuser' => 'hispass'
);

# FUNCTIONS

# htpasswd
function htpass($pass) {
        return crypt($pass, base64_encode($pass));
}

# database
function connect_to_db() {
        if(!$link = @mysql_connect(DB_HOST,DB_USER,DB_PASS)){
            die("MYSQL ERROR: " .mysql_error(). "n");
        }else{
            if(!@mysql_select_db(DB_NAME)){
                die ("MYSQL ERROR:".mysql_error());
            }else{
                return $link;
            }
        }
}

# init
$link = connect_to_db();

$query = "select username, password from protected_users where DATE(NOW()) < expires";

if(!$result = @mysql_query($query)) {
        die(mysql_error(). "n". $query);
} else {
        # create backup file if .htpasswd already exists
        if(file_exists(HTPASSWDFILE)) {
                copy(HTPASSWDFILE, HTPASSWDBAK);
        }

        # dump DB users into file
        $file = fopen(HTPASSWDTMP, 'w') or die("Can't open file");
        while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_NUM)) {
           fwrite($file, $row[0]. ":" .htpass($row[1]). "n");
        }

# dump static users into file
        foreach($static_users as $user=>$pass) {
           fwrite($file, $user. ":" .htpass($pass). "n");
        }

        # close links / files
        mysql_close($link);
        fclose($file);

        rename(HTPASSWDTMP, HTPASSWDFILE);
}

Create the database and prepare tables:

CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS htpasswd;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `protected_users` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `username` varchar(32) NOT NULL,
  `password` varchar(32) NOT NULL COMMENT 'plain password',
  `expires` date NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=2 ;

INSERT INTO `protected_users` (`id`, `username`, `password`, `expires`) VALUES
(1, 'test', 'test', '2012-01-01');

Give some privileges to DB user “htpasswd”:

GRANT SELECT ON htpasswd.* TO 'htpasswd'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'somepassword';

Now set up your .htaccess file

AuthType Basic
     AuthName "Protected"
     AuthBasicProvider file
     AuthUserFile /usr/local/www/htpasswd/.htpasswd
     Require valid-user

and cron job:

*/5 * * * * cd /path/to/your/script/; /path/to/bin/php yourscript.php

.htpassword will be updated every 5 minutes. If you want to increase/decrease time between updates just change the value in cron job.

Have fun!

BASH - Simple random password generator

Posted 1 year ago at 8:20 pm. 2 comments

Ever wondered how cool it will be to have an random password generator in your shell?

Here’s a little bash script i wrote:

Put this

#!/usr/local/bin/bash
if [ -n $1 ]; then
      CHARS=$1
      while [[ "$COUNT" -ne "$CHARS" ]]; do
            let COUNT=COUNT+1;
      done
else
      COUNT=8; # DEFAULT NUMBER OF CHARACTERS
fi

/usr/bin/perl -le'print map+(A..Z,a..z,0..9)[rand 62],1..'$COUNT;

into /usr/local/bin/passgen and then chmod it properly:

[root@box ~]# chmod +x /usr/local/bin/passgen

Now try it in action:

[root@box ~]# passgen
UJXG1JMx
[root@box ~]# passgen 15
l3LMgNOuCK3OYnH
[root@box ~]# passgen 1 
J
[root@box ~]#

Have fun! :-P

Change users umask - FreeBSD

Posted 1 year ago at 8:14 pm. 0 comments

If you want to have safe shared hosting u will definitely change some user permissions and the UMASK.

Let me first explain what the umask is:

UMASK is an unix env variable which automatically sets file permissions on newly created files.

By default it is set to 022, which means it creates newly created files with permissions 755. (More about permissions - File system permissions)

Now if we want to set user permissions to 700 , we will change that default umask to 007 for this particular user.

Here is the command to set up users class:

pw usermod username -L someclass

Add this line to /etc/login.conf:

someclass:
	:umask=007:
	:tc=default:

Run the command:

cap_mkdb /etc/login.conf

to rebuild database.

Now were set, login to macihne as user “username”:

ssh username@box

Create some random directory:

[username@box ~]$ mkdir smth

And the directory permissions should look like this:

[username@box ~]$ ls -al | grep smth
drwx------  2 username  username    512 Feb 16 19:04 smth
[username@box ~]$

If you want to have different permissions, just change the value in /etc/login.conf “:umask=007:” to one that fits to you. More about UMASK - UMASK.

Get rid of those stupid ^M’s from your code.

Posted 1 year ago at 4:21 pm. 5 comments

Yes i’m geek and i’m using VI. I found tons of ^M’s in wordpress files while i was coding this blog.

Here’s how to get rid of them:

Open your file in vi

# vi file.php

then press “:” and type this:

:%s/[ctrl+v][ctrl+m]//g

[ctrl+v] … hold control and press v
[ctrl+m] … hold control and press m

Voila, there’s no more ^M’s and your code is clean in the way it should be!