This can be used either instead of or in addition to the existing basic authentication. This is only meant to be an interface with which you can access external authentication and authorization methods. Using External Authorization Required Elements You need to set up a .htaccess file to use external authorization. You can choose to use NCSA-style authentication or authorization, as shown by the samples below. Programming Interface Information is passed to the external authentication and authorization scripts via environment variables.
Access is granted or denied by the exit status.
The necessary information is passed to the authentication script via environment variables. As with authentication scripts, the authorization script receives its information via environment variables. Examples The examples below demonstrate different combinations of NCSA-style and external authorization and authentication. These are only meant to be very simple examples to demonstrate the programming interface to the external authorization and authentication scripts. The actual scripts or code necessary would be much more complex.