Choosing a user authentication mechanism

User authentication is one part of a security system for protecting your data.

MobiLink provides you with a choice of user authentication mechanisms. You do not have to use a single installation-wide mechanism; MobiLink lets you use different authentication mechanisms for different script versions within the installation for flexibility.

  • No MobiLink user authentication   If your data is such that you do not need password protection, you can choose not to use any user authentication in your installation. In this case, the MobiLink user name must still be included in the ml_user table, but the hashed_password column is null.

  • Built-in MobiLink user authentication   MobiLink uses the user names and passwords stored in the ml_user MobiLink system table to perform authentication.

    The built-in mechanism is described in the following sections.

  • Custom authentication   You can use the MobiLink script authenticate_user to replace the built-in MobiLink user authentication system with one of your own. For example, depending on your consolidated database management system, you may be able to use the database user authentication instead of the MobiLink system.

    See Custom user authentication.

For information about other security-related features of MobiLink and its related products, see: