We have a client on Windows - utilising an internal Intranet. We want their users to be able to login to a website membership area without having to enter login details.

A suggestion has been made regarding using ActiveX and PHP on the website to query the users machine for a username that is then matched with a username in the MySQL database on the website.

This sounds like a potential solution, but is it feasible? as I cannot find anything in Google that would give me a good starting pointing on implementing this or something similar.

Thanks,
Emmett

no, there is no activeX on linux
however,
there are plenty of websites that can remeber login cretentilas without ActiveX,
so possible your solution is not the best one, sounds like a something from the last century where people thought activeX in a website is a good idea

Do the machines have static IPs? If they do, then the server can recognize those and check them against a login database.

Thanks guys. I think we came to the same conclusion that we need to find a different way of doing this.

You should be able to use Apache authentication to query Open Active Directory (LDAP ...) and use this method to restrict access to all or part of the website. Since the website is internal, you do not have to implement a "login" system within the website itself, as you must do "outside." If the user isn't authorized (according to the company's security department), they can't get there. If they do get there, your PHP program has a reliable way to identify them and to know more about them. This creates "single sign-on."

Apache (or other) systems running on Linux can query an ActiveDirectory domain for authentication/authorization purposes, as can Linux itself (through PAM). There are many documents out there on the web that discuss how to do this.

(ActiveDirectory is basically Microsoft's pet trade-name for ... LDAP.)

I believe that you are incorrectly using the term "ActiveX" in this case, and that you mean "Active Directory."

Note: it's usually a good idea to have your script check the "ActiveX user" information that is provided by Apache ... which is known-good. If it is not there, then somehow the site has been accessed by someone whose identity is not known, i.e. due to an Apache configuration error or somesuch. In this case, the site should return, say, a "401 Not Authorized" code and refuse to do anything. Never use the same site for both "internal use only" and "public" purposes.