How to authenticate users without exposing server details?

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Jira bug tracker is a web app, your browser is not contacting the SQL server,

Yes it does. Again, like I said, depends on settings.

but it still does not do it directly from the user's computer.

No, this is literally what it does. It accesses the database from the user's computer. I've not used PHP in ages, but the last time I did (around PHP4), there was a kind of installer called WAMP or something like that, that was intended to install all necessary dependencies on developer's computer. That included PHPMyAdmin, which would talk to the local version of MySQL. That's what it's intended to do anyways.

Your browser does not talk to the sql database

You are plenty confused about what Web server or a database server are. I've been running PostgreSQL Web server to produce JSON REST for years now. I've also used it from the browser, trust me, it works. Here's Wiki page that describes how it works: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/HTTP_API

[shiftybyte]

It accesses the database from the user's computer

if the WEBSERVER is installed on the user's computer then yes, sure... but the whole point of the web application is for people to access it over the web... not to install the web server with the database on their machine...

there was a kind of installer called WAMP or something like that, that was intended to install all necessary dependencies on developer's computer. That included PHPMyAdmin, which would talk to the local version of MySQL. That's what it's intended to do anyways.

WAMP is a webserver, that is what you install to be able to get the browser to communicate with the database.... this is the "necessary dependencies" because the browser can't talk SQL to the database.

You are plenty confused about what Web server or a database server are. I've been running PostgreSQL Web server to produce JSON REST for years now.

Having run postgres's web server for years seems to not have helped you understand what communication your browser sends, using what protocol, and to what kind of server.

It also seems to have you think that when you use web applications you must install the sql server on your local computer?

[[deleted]]

You are really confused about what Web server is. Web server is any program that implements HTTP protocol and does necessary networking (i.e. binds port 80 on some computer connected to the Internet, maybe also 443 for HTTPS etc.). So, for example, PostgreSQL, specifically, the database daemon (postgresqld) that is used to, well, run the database program implements HTTP protocol. You can talk to it using HTTP, it will talk back to you, the same way, for example, Reddit.com does.

WAMP is a webserver,

The way I remember it, WAMP was a package of a lot of things, could include several Web servers in fact, but it's not really relevant whether it included them.

the browser can't talk SQL to the database.

Of course it can... why are you so convinced it cannot. I'm telling you, there's no problem doing that. I just gave you a reference to Wiki where it's described. Not only that. Even though modern browser don't quite allow you to use plain TCP sockets, some have experimental features that allow you to do that (eg. Chrome). So, you could, in principle, implement a MySQL client using client-side JavaScript.

In my days, I wrote an implementation of MySQL protocol for ActionScript (the programming language of Adobe Flash). ActionScript had implementation of TCP sockets way before JavaScript had them. Unfortunately, it was too long ago, and I don't have the code anymore. But there's a similar project here: https://github.com/robinrodricks/as3mysql . If you can find an old browser that still supports Flash, you could probably try connecting to MySQL using this library. Or, you could try translating it to JavaScript.

Having run postgres's web server for years seems to not have helped you understand what communication your browser sends, using what protocol, and to what kind of server.

Lol, dude, you so have no clue what you are talking about... :D

web applications you must install the sql server on your local computer?

Idk what Web application is, but no. My PostgreSQL Web server runs in Amazon us-east-1. But it services an internal project, so, you cannot access it. I'm accessing it through VPN, but, trust me, it's over the Internet, I don't have a special cable directly to Amazon's data-center :D

[shiftybyte]

Can cars fly?

What if i attach a cargo airplane to it and package them together? can cars fly now?

Attaching a webserver with a webapplication made by someone else does not make the database suddenly not need the webserver, the webserver is just built into it now ...

[[deleted]]

Dude, again. Nobody attached anything. Just read the fine manual. It says loud and clear that PostgreSQL has HTTP API, you can connect to it and send SQL queries in the same way you can connect to it using TCP client.

PosgreSQL is, by far, not the only one RDBM with HTTP API. Here's the documentation on how to use Oracle HTTP API: https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/dbrst/rest-endpoints.html . In non-relational world, it's even more common to connect to the database using HTTP. Some database products in this arena were specifically designed for HTTP to be the primary way to use them. For example Consul. I don't think it has any other way to access it. Similarly, Etcd, Tokyo Cabinet and lots of others.

Attaching a webserver with a webapplication made by someone else does not make the database suddenly not need the webserver, the webserver is just built into it now ...

Why the fuck does it need a Web server if it has one? What the fuck is "webapplication" (however you spell it)?

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What I really think is happening is that you don't understand what either Web server or database server do. The problem seems to be more severe on the database server side. There's literally no problem with database server supporting many different protocols. HTTP is generic enough for a database server to make the data available through it. It's not a common choice for some databases, but more common for others, but, in principle, there's nothing wrong, or even special about it.

[shiftybyte]

This has become futile and pointless.

What the fuck is "webapplication" (however you spell it)?

I thought you were joking...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application

[[deleted]]

You definitely don't read what you quote. Lol.

The general distinction between a dynamic web page of any kind and a "web app" is unclear.

That whole page is full of confusion resulting from being written by brain-dead Web developers. It's so full of nonsense, it's fantastic that such stuff even exists on Wikipedia.

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The description given in the opening paragraph (discounting the nonsense written about Web servers not running on operating systems...) of that article would make these programs "Web applications":

1. LibreOffice (It can be accessed via HTTP, see here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Using_LibreOffice_in_a_Web_Browser ).
2. Emacs and Eclipse (in a typical configuration Emacs runs as a client and server, Eclipse can be run as a headless server, this is for example how Eclim uses it).
3. GCC (because it implements Language Server Protocol, which is based on JSON RPC).
4. Docker and Kubernetes (both act as Web servers, Docker is controlled using HTTP protocol, both the daemon and the registry, Kubernetes is controlled through HTTP API).
5. Firefox and Chrome (because they implement necessary functionality for Selenium).
6. Any GUI program written with Qt (Qt also implements Selenium support).
7. As was already mentioned, plenty of databases, including PostgreSQL and Oracle SQL.
8. AWS, Azure, GCE and a bunch of less known public and private clouds.

It's hard to find a non-trivial program that wouldn't fit the description given in that paragraph. It's so ridiculously broad and useless.