Re: PHP - authenticate and authorize using AS400 profile

Perhaps I am missing the point of this but if the task is to provide a web page the can only be used by an AS400 profile then this is commonly achieved by setting the Apache configuration to require that such pages are protected by the AS400 system password file ( PasswdFile %%SYSTEM) and assigning Basic Authentication (AuthType Basic). By also setting these requests to run as UserID %%CLIENT%% then the HTTP server takes care of security automatically and any server-side functions performed by the web page will already have been authenticated by the HTTP server and can be trusted to execute under profile designated by the server in the REMOTE_USER environment variable which can be passed to any user defined routine.

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kelly Cookson
Sent: Monday, 9 November 2009 12:33 a.m.
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: [WEB400] PHP - authenticate and authorize using AS400 profile

I've been working on a PHP function that: (1) authenticates a user by
connecting to the AS400, and (2) authorizes a user based on information
from the user profile. I've included the code at the end of this post.



The code works. My question has to do with accepting the user name and
password from the $_POST array.



I know the mantra is "never trust user input." However, we use long
passwords, and we encourage users to make up passwords that include
special characters. Do I need to scrub the input at all, since I'm only
using it to establish a connection and set a $_SESSION variable? Should
I scrub certain characters (and tell users they can't include those
characters in their passwords)? If so, which characters?



Thanks,

Kelly



Note: the script below assumes users are authorized to access an
application if they belong to the *SECOFR user class or they belong a
supplemental group called MYGROUP.



function validateUser()

{

//Step 1: Authenticate the user by connecting to the AS400.

$username=$_POST["user"];

$password=$_POST["password"];

$conn = i5_connect("myas400",$username,$password);

if (!$conn)

{

$result = "Invalid username or password.";

}

else

{

//Step 2. Authorize the user by checking profile information;

$rtvusrprf = (i5_command("rtvusrprf",

array("usrprf"=>"*CURRENT"),

array("usrcls"=>"usrcls","supgrpprf"=>"supgrpprf"),

$conn));

if (!$rtvusrprf)

{

$result = "Authorization error.";

}

else

{

if ($usrcls == "*SECOFR")

{

$_SESSION["user"] = $username;

$result = "Thank you for signing in.";

}

else

{

$supgrps = str_split($supgrpprf, 10);

if (in_array("MYGROUP", $supgrps))

{

$_SESSION["user"] = $username;

$result = "Thank you for signing in.";

}

else

{

$result = "Not authorized for this application.";

}

}

}

//Step 3. Close connection. Use the NOBODY profile for better
performance.

i5_close($conn);

}

return $result;

}