HTTP Digest Authentication

FAQ

Installation Instructions

1. Unzip and upload the http-digest-auth folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
2. Activate the HTTP Digest Authentication plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
3. Configure a HTTP username/password by going to Users > Your Profile page.
4. You’ll be prompted for these credentials when you logout after activating the plugin for the first time.

How does HTTP logout work?

When you access the wp-login.php page a portion of the realm is generated and stored in a session variable so the realm looks like “HTTP Auth Session MTM4MTc0NzU3OQ==”
When you logout of WordPress this session variable is deleted and a new realm is generated, hence the browser prompts you for credentials.

How are the HTTP Digest credentials stored?

The username is stored in the wp_usermeta table in plain-text. The password is stored in a two-way encryption format in the same table. It is encrypted and decrypted with the mcrypt_encrypt() and mcrypt_decrypt() functions.

But I saw the plain-text password in my database

That means your PHP installation doesn’t have the mcrypt extension. To check if this is the case go to your <?php phpinfo(); ?> and check if there is a section called mcrypt. If there isn’t one in your VPS/Dedicated server install it

on Debian/Ubuntu

apt-get install php5-mcrypt

on Centos/Fedora

yum install php5-mcrypt

After installation change the password (or enter the same password in Your Profile) to encrypt it.

Shared hosting users needn’t worry about this as any decent host should already have this installed.

Help! I forgot my HTTP Digest credentials

You can find your username by executing the following MySQL query.

SELECT meta_value FROM `wp_usermeta` WHERE meta_key = 'http-digest-auth_username' and user_id = (SELECT ID from wp_users where user_login = 'WordPress_Username');

Remember to replace wp_ with your actual database prefix and WordPress_Username with your login name.

The password can be reset with the following query

UPDATE `wp_usermeta` SET meta_value = 'password' WHERE meta_key = 'http-digest-auth_password' and user_id = (SELECT ID from wp_users where user_login = 'admin');

This will set the HTTP password to password. Login and change it immediately.

What does the “Anyone can use these credentials” option do?

By default if you access the wp-login.php page using your HTTP credentials, only YOUR WordPress username can login.
This security measure can be disabled by ticking this option.

Are the HTTP credentials stored in the database even after this plugin is deactivated/deleted?

Deactivating this plugin doesn’t affect the credentials but deleting the plugin erases all HTTP user credentials leaving no trace of it in the database.