RFC - 2617

HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication

Original:	ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2617.txt
Authors:	J. Franks [Northwestern University], P. Hallam-Baker [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.]
Date:	June 1999
Category:	Draft Standard

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Obsoletes:
RFC-2069	An Extension to HTTP : Digest Access Authentication (Obsoleted by RFC-2617draft)

Referred by:	43 RFC
Refers to:	8 RFC

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Status

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(-> 2617^draft) [6]. Some optional elements specified by RFC 2069(-> 2617^draft) 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.

Like Basic, Digest access authentication verifies that both parties to a communication know a shared secret (a password); unlike Basic, this verification can be done without sending the password in the clear, which is Basic's biggest weakness. As with most other authentication protocols, the greatest sources of risks are usually found not in the core protocol itself but in policies and procedures surrounding its use.

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