DIY OpenID with phpMyID (and a redirect error fix)

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So, while first messing around with Twitterfeed (as mentioned in my last post), and grousing about having to sign-in to a totally unrelated website to use the OpenID login system, I found this:

phpMyID

phpMyID lets you create your own single-user OpenID server on your own webserver. It even includes an htaccess file for creating the correct headers if your host runs PHP as cgi.

Coolness. I now have two custom OpenIDs … one for each of my web identities.

If you can install and configure simple PHP scripts, and you can generate an MD5 hash to authenticate your login, it takes about 5 minutes to set up … however, some servers seem to have a problem getting “stuck” in the middle of the authentication process (like the gridservers at mediatemple, my much-beloved new hosting company). If that happens to you, never fear! There’s a quick fix by editing a couple of lines in the MyID.php file.

If you install the scripts, and your server lets you fill in the login information but then gets stuck indefinitely on the “Redirecting to:” message, here’s the fix:

In MyID.php (right around line 210) replace: $hdr = $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_DIGEST'];
with: $hdr = stripslashes($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_DIGEST']);
and three lines down, replace: $hdr = $_SERVER['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'];
with: $hdr = stripslashes($_SERVER['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION']);

Voilà! You’re up and running!