[FIXED] Why are $_SERVER["PHP_AUTH_USER"] and $_SERVER["PHP_AUTH_PW"] not set?

Issue

Before I begin, I'd like to point out that I've browsed Stack Overflow and found other similar questions - PHP_AUTH_USER not set? and HTTP Auth via PHP - PHP_AUTH_USER not set? - and these have pointed out that the authentication $_SERVER variables won't be set if ''Server API'' is set to ''CGI/FCGI'', but I checked my ''phpinfo()'' output and my ''Server API'' is set to ''Apache 2.0 Handler''.

Ok so I have a simple script as follows:

<?php
    echo "Username: " . $_SERVER["PHP_AUTH_USER"] . ", Password: " . $_SERVER["PHP_AUTH_PW"];
?>

... which I am calling remotely via the following:

wget -v --http-user=johnsmith --http-password=mypassword http://www.example.com/myscript.php

... but which only outputs:

Username: , Password:

I have also tried calling the script using PHP cURL and setting the authentication parameters appropriately as follows:

 curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "johnsmith:mypassword");

... but I get the same output as above.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Perhaps there is something else I need to enable / configure?

Solution

I've finally discovered the answer thanks to the of help of Naktibalda in ##php on irc.freenode.net

The following page summarises the issue: http://php.net/manual/en/features.http-auth.php

To quote the relevant bits:

As of PHP 4.3.0, in order to prevent someone from writing a script which reveals the password for a page that was authenticated through a traditional external mechanism, the PHP_AUTH variables will not be set if external authentication is enabled for that particular page and safe mode is enabled. Regardless, REMOTE_USER can be used to identify the externally-authenticated user. So, you can use $_SERVER['REMOTE_USER'].

...

PHP uses the presence of an AuthType directive to determine whether external authentication is in effect.

Answered By - Kosta Kontos

Answer Checked By - Candace Johnson (PHPFixing Volunteer)