Apache::RedirectDBI - Redirect requests to different directories based on the existence of a user in one or more database tables

SYNOPSIS

PerlModule Apache::DBI Apache::RedirectDBI

<Location /path/to/virtual/directory>
    SetHandler perl-script
    PerlHandler Apache::RedirectDBI
    PerlAuthenHandler Apache::AuthenDBI

    PerlSetVar Auth_DBI_data_source     dbi:Oracle:CERT
    # :
    # and other Auth_DBI_* variables
    # :

    PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_data_source dbi:Oracle:CERT
    PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_username    nobody
    PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_password    nobody
    PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_location    /path/to/virtual/directory
    PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_default     /path/to/virtual/directory.1
    PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_table2uri   "t1 /directory.2 t2 /directory.3"
    PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_field       DB_field_name_containing_username
    PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_url         DB_field_name_containing_redirect_url
    PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_external    External_REDIRECT_is_issued

    AuthName "Realm"
    AuthType Basic
    Require  valid-user
</Location>

DESCRIPTION

Apache::RedirectDBI allows you to create a virtual path in your document hierarchy.

All requests for access to this virtual path should require a username and password 
to access. When the user attempts to access this virtual path their username is 
looked up in one or more database tables. The table in which the username is found 
in determines the physical path from which files are served.

For internal redirects the files are served to the user without the URL changing, 
so they never know that they have been redirected.  For external redirects the
web browser is sent a redirected to the desired URL.

The user is redirected to a default location if they are not in any of the database 
tables.

CONFIGURATION

First, define the virtual location that a user will see. You must also create other 
directories from which files will be served.

For example, specify /dir as the virtual directory, and have $DOCROOT/dir.1,
$DOCROOT/dir.2 and $DOCROOT/dir.3 as three possible directories that files
will be served from, depending on the table that lists the user.

    <Location /dir>
        ...
    </Location>
  
The different configuration directives in httpd.conf have the following
meanings;

RedirectDBI_data_source

A DBI identifier for the data source that contains the tables that will be
used to determine which directory to send the user to.

RedirectDBI_username

The username to use when connecting to the data source.

RedirectDBI_password

The password to use when connecting to the data source.

RedirectDBI_location

The same path as used in the <Location ...> section of this configuration.

RedirectDBI_default

Path (relative to the document root) from which files will be served if the
user does not exist in any of the database files.

PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_field

A sting that provides the field name that contains the login username.

PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_url

A string that provides the field name containing the URL name to use for
the user logged in.  If this directive is not provided, an URI is obtianed
from the second subparameter from the RedirectDBI_table2uri directive.

PerlSetVar RedirectDBI_external

If the directive is set to any value, an external REDIRECT is presented
to the client.  If it is not set, an internal redirect is issued.

RedirectDBI_table2uri

A string containing white space seperated elements. If the RedirectDBI_url
directive is not set, each element is forms a pair where the first element 
is the name of the user table and the second element is the redirect location.
If the RedirectDBI_url is set, the list is just the user tables to scan.
The URI directory is relative to the document root from which files will 
be redireted if the user is in this table.


CREATING YOUR TABLES

The tables listed in the RedirectDBI_table2uri string must contain one or
more columns. One of these columns B<must> be contain the  username, 
which is specified by the RedirectDBI_field directive.

These tables do not necessarily have to be real tables. If the backend
database supports it then they could be views. This allows for a lot of
flexibility in specifying the criteria for the inclusion of a user in
the table.

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS


If the same username exists in more than one of the listed tables, the
location for the first table they are found in is used. Tables are searched
in the same order as they are listed in the configuration file.

It is assumed that the database connection to read the tables will always
succeed.

SEE ALSO

perl(1), Apache(3), Apache::DBI(3)

AUTHORS


Mike Smith (mjs@iii.co.uk)
George Sanderson (perler@xorgate.com)

Original Apache module

Nik Clayton (nik@freebsd.org)

Original CGI scripts which this replaces, and this documentation.