RFC 2617 (rfc2617) - Page 1 of 34

HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication

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Network Working Group                                          J. Franks
Request for Comments: 2617                       Northwestern University
Obsoletes: 2069                                          P. Hallam-Baker
Category: Standards Track                                 Verisign, Inc.
                                                            J. Hostetler
                                                         AbiSource, Inc.
                                                             S. Lawrence
                                                   Agranat Systems, Inc.
                                                                P. Leach
                                                   Microsoft Corporation
                                                             A. Luotonen
                                     Netscape Communications Corporation
                                                              L. Stewart
                                                       Open Market, Inc.
                                                               June 1999


      HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   "HTTP/1.0", includes the specification for a Basic Access
   Authentication scheme. This scheme is not considered to be a secure
   method of user authentication (unless used in conjunction with some
   external secure system such as SSL [5]), as the user name and
   password are passed over the network as cleartext.

   This document also provides the specification for HTTP's
   authentication framework, the original Basic authentication scheme
   and a scheme based on cryptographic hashes, referred to as "Digest
   Access Authentication".  It is therefore also intended to serve as a
   replacement for RFC 2069 [6].  Some optional elements specified by
   RFC 2069 have been removed from this specification due to problems
   found since its publication; other new elements have been added for
   compatibility, those new elements have been made optional, but are
   strongly recommended.



Franks, et al.              Standards Track
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