Digest authentication and single sign-on, correct format and browsers supporting

Paul Morris <paul.morris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:26:19 +0000

I want to achieve a single sign-on interface for all of the sub domains 

of a given top level domain. For this I have identified Digest 

authentication as an appropriate solution thanks to its support for 

enabling multiple domains to share the same user credentials.

I have the AuthDigestDomain directive set to "/ 

http://base.url.com:8000/ http://one.base.url.com:8000/ 

http://two.base.url.com:8000/"; in my Apache configuration file. I can 

see this value being forwarded verbatim to the browser by Apache in the 

response headers correctly.

I point a browser to http://base.url.com:8000/ to sign on, which works. 

However, when I then connect to any of the other listed URLs, 

http://one.base.url.com:8000/ and http://two.base.url.com:8000/, I still 

get a sign-on prompt. I realise that support for this feature of Digest 

must be implemented by the browser. So far I have tried Firefox 1.5, 

IE7, Opera 9.26 and Safari 3.0.4 -- all of which refuse to provide the 

same login credentials on these domains without re-prompting for the 

user information. The realm is set to the same value for all domains.

Here is an extract from my configuration file for the digest authentication:

<Directory /home/web>
       AuthType Digest
       AuthName Example

       AuthDigestDomain / http://base.url.com:8000/ 

http://one.base.url.com:8000/ http://two.base.url.com:8000/

       AuthUserFile my.db
       Require valid-user
</Directory>

Is this feature not supported by any modern Web browser or have I gotten 

the format for AuthDigestDomain wrong?

Thanks!
Paul.
--
Paul Morris | Project Development UK
Interactive Data Managed Solutions Ltd
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