RESTful authentication for REST web services.

Hello,

I've already searched google, but most of articles make the assumption that the user agent is a browser.

What if the user is accessing the same REST controller action via another client (another ruby script for example)? How could I restrict it to users that have an account in the system?

it's really a basic question - the app only serves certain parts of the website for logged users when accessed through a browser user agent, I want the same thing to happen when someone is accessing it from another client and the app is responding the same action with a different format (XML or RSS for example)

Thanks,

Marcelo.

I believe the typical method is to use http authentication.

--Michael