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Websocket Basics with JavaScript

Submitted by NanoDano on Tue, 12/28/2021 - 00:00

Intro

To implement WebSockets, you need a client and a server. Ws.js is a library for Node.js that lets you create servers. For the client side, we'll use the native WebSocket object in the browser.

  • Server side: ws.js WebSocket implementation
  • Client side: Native WebSocket object in browser

Server example

You need to install the ws package with npm first:

Process Form Inputs with PHP

Submitted by NanoDano on Wed, 08/05/2020 - 01:37

An essential task for most web applications is the ability to take user input. We will look at several common tasks in PHP like:

  • How to access GET query parameters from the URL
  • How to use forms to submit GET and POST values
  • Understanding the security implications of accepting user data and how to protect yourself
  • Creating a form to submit GET or POST requests
  • Handling checkbox and multi-select fields
  • Handing file uploads

HTTP Basic Authentication with PHP

Submitted by NanoDano on Wed, 08/05/2020 - 00:09

There many ways of performing authentication over the web. You can use a token and pass it as a special header. This is commonly done with API tokens. You can also use a cookie to store a session token. This is common for webservers that have a database session in the backend.

One simple method is to use HTTP Basic Access Authentication. This involves adding a header that contains your username and password. The proper format for the header is:

Authorization: Basic XXXXXX

Where XXXXXX is your credentials in the form of username:password with base64 encoding.

PHP automatically decodes and splits the username and password into special named constants:

  • PHP_AUTH_USER with the username as a plain-text string
  • PHP_AUTH_PW with the password as a plain-text string

We will look at how to restrict a page using HTTP basic authentication in PHP.

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