Apple QuickTime Streaming Server Darwin Streaming Server Controlling Access to Streamed Media

Controlling Access to Streamed Media

You can set up authentication to control client access to streamed media files. Two schemes of authentication are supported: basic and digest. By default, the server uses the more secure digest authentication.

You can also control playlist access and administrator access to your streaming server. Authentication does not control access to media streamed from a relay server. The administrator of the relay server must set up authentication for relayed media.

The ability to manage user access is built into the streaming server, so it is always enabled.

For access control to work, an access file must be present in the directory you selected as your Media Directory. If an access file is not present in the streaming server media directory, all clients are allowed access to the media in the directory.

To set up access control:

1Use the qtpasswd command-line utility to create new user accounts with passwords.

2Create an access file and place it in the media directory that you want to protect.

3If you want to disable authentication for a media directory, remove the access file (called qtaccess) or rename it (for example, qtaccess.disabled).

Creating an Access File

An access file is a text file called qtaccess that contains information about users and groups who are authorized to view media in the directory in which the access file is stored. The directory you use to store streamed media can contain other directories, and each directory can have its own access file. When a user tries to view a media file, the server checks for an access file to see whether the user is authorized to view the media. The server looks first in the directory where the media file is located. If an access file is not found, it looks in the enclosing directory. The first access file that’s found is used to determine whether the user is authorized to view the media file.

The access file for the streaming server works like the Apache web server access file.

You can create an access file with any text editor. The filename must be qtaccess and the file can contain some or all of the following information:

AuthName <message> AuthUserFile <user filename> AuthGroupFile <group filename> require user <username1> <username2> require group <groupname1> <groupname2> require valid-user

require any-user

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