Authen-Prepare version 0.05 DESCRIPTION Authen::Prepare sets up authentication credentials for a specific hostname, username, and password using a combination of stored information and user prompts. These credentials can be used in other scripts or modules that require authentication information. Using this module allows these other scripts to be flexible in their usage of authentication information without recoding user prompts or storing passwords in the code. The simplest use of this module is to create the initial object it with no arguments; the credentials will be built from a set of user prompts. A more full-featured use of this module is to specify all authentication information ahead of time using a password file and command-line arguments or environment variables. The initial object can then be created with three named arguments (hostname, username, and passfile) and the credentials for the specified hostname and username will be extracted from the password file. This allows the calling script to be used in an automated environment. Any combination of the named arguments can be provided; the user will be prompted for any missing information. Password File The password file must not have any group or world permissions in order to be usable by this module. Each line of the password file should contain the hostname, username, and password separated by a colon. Wildcards are supported in the hostname field only. This allows a default host to be specified. Comments may be added by prefixing a line with the '#' character. (Inline comments are not supported at this time.) NOTE: The password file is read from top to bottom so only the first match will be returned. Example: # this is a comment hostname1:username1:password1 hostname2:username2:password2 host*:username:password # default hostname *:username:password INSTALLATION To install this module, run the following commands: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install Alternatively, to install with Module::Build, you can use the following commands: perl Build.PL ./Build ./Build test ./Build install DEPENDENCIES IO::Prompt Readonly Text::Glob PROJECT HOME PAGE http://authen-prepare.googlecode.com COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE Copyright (C) 2007, David Narayan This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. $Id$