How can I authenticate against a non-drupal database?

Question

We have a non-Drupal intranet system built on php/mySQL. We're adding a Drupal install to handle some social functions, and would like (if possible) to not duplicate all of our login information. Is there a module (or technique) that would let us authenticate against our existing users table, rather than needing to create separate user records in the new Drupal install?

I did find this, but it's been abandoned for 6 years, so I don't know how relevant it is anymore.

We have not started the new install yet, so either 6 or 7 is possible - if there's a module that would work for only 6, we're perfectly willing to do that.

Answer 1

My suggestion would be to take a look at LDAP integration or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol modules to see how they handle authentication.

My recollection is that they hook_form_alter the user_login form to add a new validation function that calls out to the LDAP server if Drupal authentication fails. You should be able to do this for your own authentication. We modeled a custom authentication on this method, but I don't recall all of the details.

Just remember that you want to use the external authentication in addition to and not instead of Drupal authenticaion so you don't lock out any admins if/when your other site is down.

Answer 2

Read this link on how to connect to multiple dB's with Drupal: http://drupal.org/node/18429

Then... You need first to add another database connection in sites/default/setting.php You will find your primary connection, and add another as stated in config file:

• Database configuration format:
  • @code
  • $databases['default']['default'] = array(
  • 'driver' => 'mysql',
  • 'database' => 'databasename',
  • 'username' => 'username',
  • 'password' => 'password',
  • 'host' => 'localhost',
  • 'prefix' => '',
  • );
  • $databases['default']['default'] = array(
  • 'driver' => 'pgsql',
  • 'database' => 'databasename',
  • 'username' => 'username',
  • 'password' => 'password',
  • 'host' => 'localhost',
  • 'prefix' => '',
  • );
  • $databases['default']['default'] = array(
  • 'driver' => 'sqlite',
  • 'database' => '/path/to/databasefilename',
  • ); Then you can easily acess data from that another database, for example, executing script in node.tpl.php like this:

db_set_active('my_database'); $artikal = db_select('my_table', 'n') ->fields('n') ->condition('my_row', $my_variable, '=') ->execute() ->fetchAssoc(); and after acessing your other database, get back to default with

db_set_active('default');

db_set_active

5 database.inc db_set_active($name = 'default') 6 database.inc db_set_active($name = 'default') 7 database.inc db_set_active($key = 'default') 8 database.inc db_set_active($key = 'default') Sets a new active database.

Parameters $key: The key in the $databases array to set as the default database.

Return value The key of the formerly active database.

Related topics Database abstraction layer Allow the use of different database servers using the same code base. 2 calls to db_set_active()

File includes/database/database.inc, line 2522 Core systems for the database layer. Code function db_set_active($key = 'default') { return Database::setActiveConnection($key); }