Basic HTTP/1.0 Authentication

The basic method is an implementation of basic authentication as described in HTTP/1.0 specification [1] .

HTTP Basic Authentication is perhaps the easiest way to add authentication to your website. When your application returns a 401 status code the visitor's browser will promot them for a username and password if they haven't already signed in.

The AuthKit middleware will check the username and password and sign in the visitor only if password was correct.

The code looks like this:

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from authkit.authenticate import middleware, sample_app

def valid(environ, username, password):
    return username == password

app = middleware(
    sample_app,
    setup_method='basic',
    basic_realm='Test Realm',
    basic_authenticate_function=valid
)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    from paste.httpserver import serve
    serve(app, host='0.0.0.0', port=8080)

The realm parameter is an identifier for the authority that is requesting authorization. It is shown to the user and should be unique within the domain it is being used. If it isn't specified, a default of AuthKit is used.

The parameter users_valid should be a function that returns True if the username and password are correct and False otherwise. The example above will allow anyone with a password that is the same as their username to sign in. In this case not entering a username or password is therefore allowed. This isn't very secure so you should customise the function to suit your setup.

If the visitor presses Cancel they will be shown the 403 Unauthorized response.

If a user has been signed in the REMOTE_USER environment variable will be set with their username so you can access it in your application code as environ['REMOTE_USER'].

The example above is available in the examples/docs directory and can be run with:

python basic.py

If you run the program you will be able to visit http://localhost:8080 but will be prompted to sign in if you visit http://localhost:8080/private and any username password combination where the username is the same as the password will sign you in any you will notice the REMOTE_USER variable will be set.