OpenPlugin::Authenticate - Validate the identity of a user

 $OP = OpenPlugin->new( config => { src => /etc/config.conf } );

 unless( $OP->authenticate->authenticate({ username => $username,
                                           password => $password,
                                         })) {

     $OP->exception->throw( "Invalid login attempt!" );
 }

The Authenticate plugin provides an interface for authenticating users. It would often be used when you have a login screen at the beginning of an application. The functions provided by the Authenticate plugin would determine whether or not the correct username and password were entered by the user.

authenticate( \%params )

Return true if the parameters specified a valid user, false if not. The required parameters depend on the driver. Generally, each driver takes a 'username' and 'password' parameter. Depending on the security mechanism and the datasource, there may be additional parameters you'll need to provide.

None known.

This plugin needs a lot of work. This interface is a little "lean". I'm not sure yet, maybe thats how we want it.

All the drivers need to be modified to be able to read options from the config, so a developer doesn't have to pass in excessive amounts of parameters upon each authentication.

Do we want to take on users and groups? I think it'd be useful, but can we do it in a generic manner?

A lot more drivers need to be created.

See the individual driver documentation for settings and parameters specific to that driver.

Copyright (c) 2001-2003 Eric Andreychek. All rights reserved.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Eric Andreychek <eric@openthought.net>