====== Authentication Backends ======

After you have enabled [[wiki:ACL]] in the configfile you need to decide how you like to store user data. Dokuwiki supports various methods and creating a new one is pretty easy.

[[wiki:DokuWiki]] uses so called authentication backends that provide a certain methods to store user data and passwords. The user won't even see this backend but you as administrator have to set up your desired authentication backend and configure it properly.

===== Backends =====
These are the backends you get with Dokuwiki:
  * [[ldap]]  -- authenticate users against a LDAP directory
  * [[mysql]] -- access any MySQL database to authenticate users
  * [[pgsql]] -- access any Postgres database to authenticate users
  * [[plain]] -- the default mechanisms which uses plain text files
  * [[punbb]] -- authenticate users against the PunBB forum (uses PunBB's cookies and database)







===== Contributed Backends =====

These Backends aren't part of the distribution, but might be useful:

  * [[http://site.goodboy01.com/cas/DokuWiki_CAS_Patch.html|CAS]] -- authenticate with a CAS server
  * [[wiki:tips:chainedauth]] -- chain more than one authentication method
  * [[wiki:tips:htaccessauth#the_htaccess_class|htaccessauth]] -- identify users that already logged in using a Basic HTTP Authorization through .htaccess
  * [[radius]] -- authenticate users against a RADIUS server
  * [[ntlm]] -- NTLM (i.e. Windows NT-based) authentication
  * [[mod_auth_tkt]] -- mod_auth_tkt authentication
  * [[pam]] -- Experimental PAM authentication
  * [[http://forum.dokuwiki.org/thread/1851|mybb]] -- authentication using the MyBB forum software
  * [[imap]] -- authenticate users against a imap/pop3 server


How to implement a new auth backend is described in the [[HOWTO]].