Automating HTTP User Authentication

[Fraser Campbell <fraser@baxter.net>]

Is there any way to send a username/password pair in the URL for an HTTP
request similar to how it can be done for ftp?

For example to log into an FTP site (other than anonymous) I can do this:

ftp://username:password@some.ftp.host/

Is there any way to do something similar and have Apache authenticate the
user.  I need HTTP authentication because I want usernames to be logged.  I
want it to be automated because they are already authenticated on another
website and want to click on a personalized link from that site to come to
ours.

http://username:password@our.www.site/ does not authentication them.  I was
hoping that I could have them click on a link such as this:

http://our.www.site/auth.cgi?user=432564&pass=8y443

Then in auth.cgi extract the username and password and redirect the user to
http://username:password@our.www.site/authenticated_location/


I hope my explanation is clear.

TIA,

Fraser