Sometimes we have to place content on our webserver we want to protect and only accessed by privileged users.

A basic security can be established by a password restricted folder access, enforced by the Apache Webserver itself.

This can be done by some simple instructions added to our .htaccess file:
(In case you haven’t already a .htaccess file, just create a new file calling it .htaccess and locating it in the folder you want to protect.)

AuthType Basic
AuthName “Protected Area”
AuthUserFile FILE
require valid-user

These commands will tell the Apache webserver that the folder in question (and all below) are now protected and it needs a valid combination of username/password to access it.

• AuthName is some free form text you can specify, telling the visitor what you are asking for and Apache Webserver will show in it’s dialog box.

• AuthUserFile is the reference to the stored .htpasswd file containing all valid username/password combinations to access the folder in question (ususally and best located out of the protected directory tree).

Having that done we now need to create the necessary .htpasswd file which we can do interactive on our server with the command:

htpasswd2 -c FILE USER

Assuming html is your webroot, a valid example, for protecting a folder called images below our webroot and using demouser/demopassword as user credentials, would be:

.htaccess:
(Locate this file within the folder images and be aware to use an absolute path for AuthUserFile, as for www.domain.com would be wrong!)

AuthUserFile /home/username/html/.htpasswd
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Login for Secure Area”
require valid-user

.htpasswd
(Create a new file called .htpasswd and locate this file within the folder you’ve specified within AuthUserFile path.)

demouser:$1$OHq3K5v3$pvFrGsHjWwYjpkZhc70T9.

Oracle’s BI Publisher which is part of the Oracle Business Intelligence Suit has at least within Enterprise Computing environment established as a reliable and preferable choice when it comes to replace the somewhat aged Oracle Reports.

Once being familiar with it you will ask yourself about why switching tool when it comes to the need of creating reports in a normal web design world mostly using MySQL Databases within a “LAMP” environment.

Written as an universal reporting tool BI Publishes does offer us a more or less universal data interface based on JDBC connections. And being able to act itself as a callable web service offering WEBDAV services based on XML data exchange it anyway seems to be an excellent choice for this world.

Already Oracle’s installation instructions does give you a quick idea about setting up BI Publisher working against some MySQL Database. But acting  in a Web environment you might find it cool integration the BI Publisher within an already existing Apache Tomcat environment and for exactly this environment I will give you a short explanation about getting things together and ready for work.

First we will pick the BI Publisher software itself by copying the xmlpserver.war file from the distribution DVD and throwing it into the webapps folder of our Apache Tomcat. Waiting a few seconds until the self-deploying mechanism of the Apache Tomcat has extracted the files for us, we need to specify the access path to our project and development repository within the file xmlp-server-config.xml.

Having done that, we need to add the MySQL JDBC driver to our system and making it known within the environment of the Apache Tomcat. (The MySQL JDBC driver can be downloaded from: http://www.mysql.com/products/connector/j/.)

So with the downloaded fileready, we have to extract it to any place we like onto our disk. Just I would recommend you to put it somewhere close to your MySQL installation for you being able to later on remember it again. Finally extracted and ready to use, we have to add the information about the mysql-connector-java- -bin.jar file to the Java Classpath of the Apache Tomcat and finally restarting it:

Having this set, as a last step we have to invoke the BI Publisher itself, in which we then will configure the new JDBC data source within the Admin region of it:

And now with this tweaking ready, MySQL DB should connect, open and work for you like a charm.

Being forced to work with MySQL Databases, not every Web Developer is familiar with databases in general.

Now the good news is that when working in a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) environment you do not really need to have deep knowledge about relational databases to succeed.

Most tools like CMS do a full automated setup for you and the only knowledge it needs to have starting with them, is the server and database name and finally the login credentials (username/password) to access it.

Just later on the one or other maintenance work will occur and you will feel the need of having some nice and neat database interface to work with. Knowing about this need today I will recommend you a few tools and you should feel free to choose one or each of them based on your platform and taste.

The first tool I will recommend you is called phpMyAdmin. It is written in PHP and as a so called browser tool it works platform independent and flawless in all common browsers. Very often being offered by hosting providers it is mostly already part of your hosting package and easy to access and use. Coming along with all necessary options like browsing and navigating through your databases, it also offers a SQL interface and the often necessary export/import options. Personally it is my favorite tool to work with.

Once you are familiar with phpMyAdmin, phpMyBackupPro is another very similar tool you might find it worth to look at. Also browser based it is mainly written for interactive exports and imports, but can get also use for scheduled automatic backups.

For Windows platform only I would like to recommend you a tool called MyDB Studio. Coming along with a well designed interface it offers all features you need and the license it needs is given away for free in case you only use it for private and non commercial interests. It just needs you to give them a valid email address and the key is emailed to you quickly after.

And now finally and last in case you are such a Macintosh guru, I would like to recommend you CocoaMySQL. It does a similar great job like the others and can get used right away after the installation has taken place. What I like is the console view of is, showing you all command issued during the past and looking at it you might even learn some SQL (Structured Query Language).