NYCPHP Meetup

[Griffith Feeney]

I would like to use Apache authentication to password protect certain
directories that contain mostly binary files. With 1600+ users, I don't
want to authenticate against a text file, especially as there is already a
mysql database available for the purpose. The webhosting provider doesn't
provide mod_auth.

I'm thinking of using a PHP page to authenticate against the mysql database
and, once a user is authenticated, have the PHP page send the server an
.htaccess user name and password. The latter would be changed from time to
time, but would be the same for all users. High security is not required
here.

I've spent many hours reading around on the web on the subject, but don't
find anything along these lines, and being a rank beginner in PHP, I don't
want to spend time trying to implement this idea if it is unworkable.

Does anybody know of an implementation, or have an idea of whether or not
this could be made to work? Thanks!