[Linux-disciples] Logging into a website with Linux system login

[Stephen R Laniel]

Is there any way to configure Apache so that basic auth uses
the Linux username and password to log in? I.e., if I change
my system password, my Apache login password will change as
well. Does anyone know how to do this? I've no doubt that
it's possible; it would seem like one of the first problems
solved.

Actually, here's another idea: if I already have an account
on the remote machine, I can encrypt all my communications
over ssh. Some apps -- for instance imapd -- will accept
commands on standard input and dump output to stdout;
because of this, I can use fetchmail to grab my IMAP mail
over ssh. Shouldn't something similar be available with a
web browser and a web server? The browser could be made to
tunnel over ssh, executing some remote command (like wget)
and pulling the results over to my machine. For some reason
I trust ssh more than SSL, though I don't know why.

The second paragraph is more speculative than the first,
hence severable. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to
hear them.

-- 
Stephen R. Laniel
steve at laniels.org
+(617) 308-5571
http://laniels.org/