Understanding HTTP Authentication Basic and Digest

HTTP authentication uses methodologies via which web servers and browsers securily exchanges the credentials like user names and passwords. Http authentication or we can also call it as Digest Authentication follows the predefined methods / standards which use encoding techniques and MD5 cryptographic hashing over HTTP protocol.

In this article we are covering the methodologies/standards used for Http Authentication.

For the sake of understanding we will be using our php scripts that will simply capture user name and passwords and we will generate the Authorization value as per the standards.

For http codes visit here

Basic Access Authentication using Base 64 Encoding

In basic Authentication we will be using base 64 encoding for generating our cryptographic string which contains the information of username and password. Please note we can use any of the encoding techniques like URL, Hexadecimal, or any other we want.

The below example illustrates the concept, we are using Burpsuite for capturing and illustrating the request.


The webpage is asking for input from the client


We are providing "hackingarticles" as User Name and "ignite" as password.

Syntax of basic Authentication
 Value = username:password
Encoded Value =  base64(Value)
Authorization Value = Basic  

In basic authentication username and password are combined into a single string using a colon in between.
Value =  hackingarticles:ignite

This string is then encoded using base 64 encoding.

Encoded Value = base64 encoded value of hackingarticles:ignite which is aGFja2luZ2FydGljbGVzOmlnbml0ZQ==

Finally the Authorization Value is obtained by putting the text "Basic" followed by before the encoded value. (We can capture the request using burpsuite to see the result)


The Authorization Value for this example is "Basic aGFja2luZ2FydGljbGVzOmlnbml0ZQ==" . This is the value which is sent to the server.  

Finally the server is decrypting the authorization value and returning the entered credentials


Basic Authentication is less secure way because here we are only using encoding and the authorization value can be decoded, In order to enhance the security we have other standards discussed further.



RFC 2069 Digest Access Authentication

Digest Access Authentication uses the hashing methodologies to generate the cryptographic result. Here the final value is sent as a response value.
RFC 2069 authentication is now outdated now and RFC2617 which is enhanced version of RFC2069 is being used. 

For the sake of understanding the syntax of RFC 2069 is explained below.

Syntax of RFC2069
Hash1=MD5(username:realm:password)
Hash2=MD5(method:digestURI)
response=MD5(Hash1:nonce:Hash2)

Hash1 contains the MD5 hash value of (username:realm:password) where realm is any string
provided by server and username and passwords are the input provided by client.

Hash2 contains the MD5 hash value of (method:digestURI) where method could be get or post depending on the page request and digestURI is the URL of the page where the request is being sent. 

response is the final string which is being sent to the server  and contains the MD5 hash value of (hash1:nounce:hash2) where hash1 and hash2 are generated above and nonce is an arbitrary string that could be used only one time provided by server to the client.

RFC 2617 Digest Access Authentication

RFC 2617 digest authentication also uses MD5 hashing algorithm but the final hash value is generated with some additional parameters

Syntax of RFC2617
Hash1=MD5(username:realm:password)
Hash2=MD5(method:digestURI)
response=MD5(Hash1:nonce:nonceCount:cnonce:qop:Hash2)

Hash1 contains the MD5 hash value of (username:realm:password) where realm is any string
Provided by server and username and passwords are the input provided by client.

Hash2 contains the MD5 hash value of (method:digestURI) where method could be get or post depending on the page request and digestURI is the URL of the page where the request is being sent. 

response is the final string which is being sent to the server  and contains the MD5 hash value of (Hash1:nonce:nonceCount:cnonce:qop:Hash2) where Hash1 and Hash2 are generated above
and for more details on other parameters refer " https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc780170(v=ws.10).aspx"

The actual working of RFC2617 is described below

The webpage is asking for input from the client



We are providing "guest" as User Name and "guest" as password.

Through burpsuite we are capturing the request so that all the parameters could be captured and we can compare the hash values captured with the hash values that we will generate through any other tool (hash calculator in this case).


We have captured the values for the following parameters

realm="Hacking Articles", nonce="58bac26865505", uri="/auth/02-2617.php", opaque="8d8909139750c6bd277cfe1388314f48", qop=auth, nc=00000001, cnonce="72ae56dde9406045" , response="ac8e3ecd76d33dd482783b8a8b67d8c1",

Hash1 Syntax=MD5(username:realm:password)
hash1 =  md5(guest:Hacking Articles:guest)

The MD5 hash value is calculated as 2c6165332ebd26709360786bafd2cd49


Hash2 Syntax =MD5(method:digestURI)
 Hash2=MD5(GET:/auth/02-2617.php)


MD5 hash value is calculated as b6a6df472ee01a9dbccba5f5e6271ca8

response Syntax =  MD5(Hash1:nonce:nonceCount:cnonce:qop:Hash2)
response = MD5(2c6165332ebd26709360786bafd2cd49:58bac26865505:00000001:72ae56dde9406045:auth:b6a6df472ee01a9dbccba5f5e6271ca8)


MD5 hash is calculated as  ac8e3ecd76d33dd482783b8a8b67d8c1

Finally the response value obtained through hash calculator is exactly same as that we have captured with burp suit above. 

Finally the server is decrypting the response value and the following is the result

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