Question

• TWiki version: 01 Feb 2003
• Perl version: 5.8.0
• Web server & version: Apache 2.0.40
• Server OS: Redhat Linux 8
• Web browser & version: Any
• Client OS: Any

I'm using the GnuSkin plugin [Set SKINHANDLER = Gnu]

I am also using user authentication to force login before any changes can be made. But I want to allow anonymous read access. I'm not sure if I did this the correct way, but I accomplished it by putting the following directives in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

      <Location>
             AuthType Basic
             AuthName "TWiki Content Editing"
             AuthUserFile /var/www/webpasswd
             require valid-user
      </Location>

This seems to work well, except that even after I log in, the panel on the left side of every page says.... Logged in as TWikiGuest

As an exercise in debugging to find out what is wrong, I discovered that WIKIUSERNAME and other "name" variables work fine in edit.gnu.tmpl but not in twiki.gnu.tmpl

When ever I edit a page, TWiki knows who I am based on my log in. But when ever I'm viewing a page, it thinks I am TWikiGuest.

Does anyone know what the problem is?

-- JoeOConnor - 31 Mar 2003

Answer

As I said in the topic just after this post, I'm new to TWiki, but I'll still try to at least start an answer. What you described is not a bug, it's a feature - that's how TWiki works by default. To change the behaviour you can do one of the following:

• Switch to cookie-based user authentication, by installing plugins, such as UserCookiePlugin or SessionPlugin
• Make TWiki remember the IP address which was used during last authentication. This is an experimental feauture described in TWikiUserAuthentication, under Partial Authentication header. This method is what I use to solve this problem.
• Force authentication of the view script by changing your .htaccess file, which is kind of reckless for the new users but it works. This is actually what you discovered in your excersize in debugging: edit script is set up as requiring authentication, while view is not. (unless you change it).

If none of the above works for you, please let me (and others) know.

regards,

-- ViktorMalakhov - 02 Apr 2003