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 program can  only  be
     used  when the usernames are stored in a DBM file. To use a flat-file data-
     base 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 extension
            .db, .pag, or .dir.

     commandThis 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  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  user-
                 name 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 formats
     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 cur-
     rently 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 @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 preference 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 supplied with most Unix systems to see what format a DBM
     file is in.

SEE ALSO
     httpd(8)