DBMMANAGE(1)               OpenBSD Reference Manual               DBMMANAGE(1)

NAME
     dbmmanage - create and update user authentication files in DBM format

SYNOPSIS
     dbmmanage filename [command] [username [encpassword]]

DESCRIPTION
     dbmmanage is used to create and update the DBM format files used to store
     usernames and passwords for basic authentication of HTTP users.  Re-
     sources available from the httpd(8) Apache web server can be restricted
     to just the users listed in the files created by dbmmanage.  This program
     can only be used when the usernames are stored in a DBM file.  To use a
     flat-file database see htpasswd(1).

     This manual page only lists the command line arguments.  For details of
     the directives necessary to configure user authentication in httpd(8),
     see the Apache manual, which can be found in /usr/share/doc/html/httpd/.

     The options are as follows:

     command        This selects the operation to perform:

                    add        Add an entry for username to filename using the
                               encrypted password encpassword.

                    adduser    Ask for a password and then add an entry for
                               username to filename.

                    check      Ask for a password and then check if username
                               is in filename and if its password matches the
                               specified one.

                    delete     Delete the username entry from filename.

                    import     Read username:password entries (one per line)
                               from stdin and add them to filename.  The pass-
                               word already has to be encrypted.

                    update     Same as the adduser command, except that it
                               makes sure username already exists in filename.

                    view       Just display the complete contents of the DBM
                               file.

     encpassword    The password to be encrypted.

     filename       The filename of the DBM format file.  Usually without the
                    extension .db, .pag, or .dir.

     username       The user for which the update operation is performed.

SEE ALSO
     htdigest(1), htpasswd(1), httpd(8)

BUGS
     One should be aware that there are a number of different DBM file formats
     in existence, and with all likelihood, libraries for more than one format
     may exist on your system.  The three primary examples are NDBM, the GNU
     project's GDBM, and Berkeley DB 2.  Unfortunately, all these libraries
     use different file formats, and you must make sure that the file format
     used by filename is the same format that dbmmanage expects to see.
     dbmmanage currently has no way of determining what type of DBM file it is
     looking at.  If used against the wrong format, dbmmanage will simply re-
     turn nothing, or may create a different DBM file with a different name,
     or at worst, it may corrupt the DBM file if you were attempting to write
     to it.

     dbmmanage has a list of DBM format preferences, defined by the
     ``@AnyDBM::ISA'' array near the beginning of the program.  Since we pre-
     fer the Berkeley DB 2 file format, the order in which dbmmanage will look
     for system libraries is Berkeley DB 2, then NDBM, and then GDBM.  The
     first library found will be the library dbmmanage will attempt to use for
     all DBM file transactions.  This ordering is slightly different than the
     standard ``@AnyDBM::ISA'' ordering in perl(1), as well as the ordering
     used by the simple dbmopen() call in perl, so if you use any other utili-
     ties to manage your DBM files, they must also follow this preference or-
     dering.  Similar care must be taken if using programs in other languages,
     like C, to access these files.

     httpd(8)'s mod_auth_db.c module corresponds to the Berkeley DB 2 library,
     while mod_auth_dbm.c corresponds to the NDBM library.  Also, one can usu-
     ally use the file(1) program supplied with most UNIX systems to see what
     format a DBM file is in.

OpenBSD 4.7                      June 7, 2008                                2
