Authentication

[deepa raj]

Which authentication mechanism is recommended to be used only if cookies or SSL session tracking is in place?

Ans : Form based.

Explanation :
Form based login session tracking can be difficult to implement, therefore a separate session tracking mechanism is recommended.

can you explain this?

[Ulf Dittmer]

Using basic (or digest) authentication, the credentials (username/password) are transmitted from the browser to the server with each HTTP request (this happens in the HTTP headers). It is thus not necessary to set cookies to identify the client.

Form authentication, on the other hand, only transmits the credentials once (when the login form is submitted). For the server to recognize the client on subsequent requests, some kind of session or cookie is necessary.

[deepa raj]

What about CLIENT-CERT authentication ?

[Baddy Davay]

CLIENT_CERT requires always to have a public certiticate key in the client side.So The way client-cert works is fully different than this username/password based authentication.

[deepa raj]

if so ,

The three types above�BASIC, DIGEST, and CLIEN‑-CERT�all use the browser�s standard pop-up form for inputting the name and password.

from HFSJ
What it means ?

CLIENT-CERT also will use pop-up form to get username and password.

is this true ?

[Joy Mukherjee]

Client-Cert means you have to send the certificate to the server.
Its doesn't open up any popup screen like BASIC or DIGEST by default.