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Glossary Web & HTTP

Basic authentication

HTTP basic authentication sends a username and password in a request header, joined with a colon and Base64-encoded.

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In more detail

user:pass becomes dXNlcjpwYXNz, which is encoding, not encryption, so use it only over HTTPS. Servers such as Apache store credentials in an .htpasswd file, with the password as a salted hash rather than plain text.

Try these tools

htpasswd Generator

Generate an Apache .htpasswd line ({SHA} format) from a username and password, computed locally with the Web Crypto API.

See also

  • Glossary Base64
    Base64 is an encoding that writes any binary data using only 64 safe text characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, + and /).
  • Glossary Salt
    A salt is a unique random value added to a password before hashing, so that identical passwords produce different hashes.
  • Glossary HTTP
    HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the protocol browsers and servers use to request and send web pages, files and data.
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