Authenticate in Apache via System Account

Question

I currently have my apache server to authenticate via a password file created from htpasswd. Configured as such:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Secured Site"
AuthUserFile "/etc/apache2/users.passwd"

How can I change this to authenticate via local system accounts and additionaly restrict to only a subset of local system accounts in a specified group?

Answer 1

The Apache module mod_auth_pam will do exactly this for you. You enable the module, and the config file should look something like

AuthType Basic
AuthName "secure area"
require group staff
require user webmaster

And you're all set.

Answer 2

You probably want to look into something like mod_auth_pam. PAM is the "Pluggable Authentication Module" system and the standard Linux (I'm assuming this is Linux) system login mechanism relies on PAM to do its authentication.

Another option is mod_authnz_external, which will look directly at the /etc/shadow file to authenticate accounts.

EDIT: Apparently mod_auth_pam is no longer maintained (unfortunately), so maybe mod_authnz_external would be a better bet...