Mailing List Archive


Back to the month index Back to the list index
A. R. M. (ali@cafe.sdc.uwo.ca)
Thu, 3 Apr 1997 15:04:28 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 15:04:28 -0500 (EST)
From: "A. R. M." <ali@cafe.sdc.uwo.ca>
Subject: Re: [mSQL] w3-auth
Message-Id: <Pine.SGI.3.95.970403145444.12217A-100000@cafe.sdc.uwo.ca>

Simon Kershaw wrote:

[snipped]
->access.conf controls which users can access the database via msqld. It
->trusts users to tell the truth as to who they are. When using mSQL via
->the WWW only the user who is running the cgi script accesses the db,
->and if msqld and httpd are on the same machine no remote access is
->required. As a minimum if this is how you are working you should
->disable remote access.
->
->w3-msql always checks in its own database to see if a particular access
->to the database is allowed. If there is no access database then all
->access is allowed (as controlled by access.conf). You can use w3-auth
->to set up the access database which contains user names and passwords
->of WWW users; it allows you to organize them into groups and to allow
->these groups access to different areas of different databases.

This is exactly how we need it to work. Allow me to sketch a schematic of
how it'll eventually work, so that if some benevolent people have some
suggestions, they could contribute. :)

Generally speaking, we have a database of job postings for summer or
part-time positions for our students.
The admins of the database will have read/write access to it while
*our students ONLY* will have read access and any other visitor not being
in our student database, isn't allowed to view the listings but can browse
the rest of the site. The university alumni could ask to be allowed to
view the databsse on a per request basis so that after they're added to a
certain group, they can have read access as well.

I think the best (maybe the only) way to implement this, is to use
w3-auth.
Although, I do agree with you that it's best for David to work on msqld
more rather than the docs.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
To remove yourself from the Mini SQL mailing list send a message containing
"unsubscribe" to "unsubscribe" to msql-list-request@bunyip.com. Send a message containing
"info msql-list" to majordomo@bunyip.com for info on monthly archives of
the list. For more help, mail owner-msql-list@bunyip.com NOT the msql-list!