[thelist] over ride htaccess password

[Richard Harb]

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004, 10:18:43 PM
> I have forgotten a htaccess password and can not access the server is
> there a way to retrieve my password?

> Andrew

Well, not exactly.

The username / password combination is usually saved in a file that is referenced to in the .htaccess
This could look like:

AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /path/to/.htusers
AuthName "Enter your password"
Require valid-user 

And then there's that .htusers file ...
This one has a line for every user containing the username and the password - which is encrypted using one of several available algorithms: CRYPT, MD5, whatever ...

As these functions are one way, there is no way of retrieving a password, however:
if you lost your it (=you forgot) then it can easily be replaced by a new entry in that file. Provided of course you have access to that server. There's a small utility that does exactly that (htpasswd).

If you do not have access to the server you'd have to rely on a friendly admin or some script that is designed to deal with such cases.

HTH
Richard