Apache: allow local connections to bypass basic authentication

Question

I'm using HTTPS+basic auth (AuthType Basic ... Require valid-user) to protect a resource, but I'd like to allow connections from localhost through, even if they aren't authenticated.

What's the simplest way of doing that?

Answer 1

You can tell apache to allow connections from specific IP addresses, like this:

Allow from 192.168.0.1/24
Satisfy Any

If you add that to your authentication scheme it will allow any IP address in the 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.0.254 range to access your content.

A full example may look like this (I am using digest, just substitute with your basic code):

<Location />
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    AuthName "SomeSite"
    AuthType Digest
    AuthDigestProvider file
    AuthDigestDomain http://somesite.com
    AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/password.file
    Require valid-user
    Allow from 192.168.0.1/24
    Satisfy Any
</Location>