DESPass

!DESPass is a program used for DES encrypting password files, suitable for uploading to a web page.

Running !DESPass

Double-click on the "!DESPass" application - a window will appear in the centre of the screen, with the text "Drop password file onto this window".

Using !DESPass

Before it can be used, you will have to create a raw password file. This is a plain text file, with each line having the user name, followed by a colon, followed by the password (which can be up to 8 characters in length).

For example:

jason:password
test:letmein

is a valid password file, where the user "jason" has the password "password", and "test" has the password "letmein".

Save this as a text file (name doesn't matter), and drag it on to the DESPass window. This will produce a save-box. Drag the "passwd" file out to your hard disc. This is a text file in a similar format to the file you gave it, except the password has been DES encrypted. In the above example, it is:

jason:YHDYtw2tBexlc
test:MuUntgm.39Lsg

Note that this will change each time you save it, so it may not necessarily be this.

Using the password file in Argo WWW server

Now you've created the password file, you will have to create a special file which tells the server that you will need a password to gain access to a directory. This filename is called "/htaccess" on the Acorn, or ".htaccess" when it is stored on the server.

This file looks like:

AuthUserFile /disk7/userweb/jason/passwd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName Please enter the username and password.
AuthType Basic
require valid-user
order deny,allow

You put this file into the directory you wish to protect. The first line you will have to modify. This is the Unix filename for the password file you created. Unless you have FTP access, this will be "/disk7/userweb/", similar to the way that your web pages are "http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/".

If you have FTP access, please email jason@tribbeck.com, and I will tell you where your directory is.

The other element you may want to change is the third line - "AuthName". This is the text that is displayed on the user's browser when asking for the username and password. Note that some browsers have a small area of text, so you may have to keep this short.

Problems

This is not supported by ArgoNet, but if you do have problems, please email jason@tribbeck.com. I would hope that any problems you will have, I will try to make the documentation clearer, so no-one else will have these problems.

Downloads

• ArcFS format

Unfortunately, I don't have a SparkFS format file!