Apache Auth

[Erik R. Jensen]

Jeff Anderson wrote:
> If I can make any app log in to this common authentication system
> through its own interface, it will be completely transparent to the user.

Sounds to me like you are really looking for a single sign-on solution 
(SSO).

You may want to look at

http://www.ja-sig.org/products/cas/

and

http://www.josso.org

I think these would be a better solution than trying to reinvent the 
wheel. I have been working with CAS and like it so far. It has clients 
for Apache, Java, .NET, Perl, PHP etc. and you can always write your own 
since it is open. It will authenticate against a number of sources and 
you can also create your own custom authentication source. There are 
always closed solutions too. I know Oracle, Sun, IBM and Novell all have 
single sign-on solutions if you want to pay for one.

-- 
Erik R. Jensen