http_authentication plugin broken in Rails 2

the rails http_authentication plugin seems to be broken,
http://github.com/rails/http_authentication/tree/master

http://github.com/rails/http_authentication/tree/master/lib/http_authentication/basic.rb

Problem is that the included controller method :request_http_basic_authentication passes on the controller as an object,
which in turn is given the :render command externally.
This breaks because :render is now a protected method.

require 'base64'

module HttpAuthentication
  module Basic
   extend self

    module ControllerMethods
     def authenticate_or_request_with_http_basic(realm = "Application", &login_procedure)
       authenticate_with_http_basic(&login_procedure) || request_http_basic_authentication(realm)
     end

     def authenticate_with_http_basic(&login_procedure)
       HttpAuthentication::Basic.authenticate(self, &login_procedure)
     end

     def request_http_basic_authentication(realm = "Application")
        HttpAuthentication::Basic.authentication_request(self, realm)
     end
   end

   def authenticate(controller, &login_procedure)
     if authorization(controller.request)
       login_procedure.call(*user_name_and_password(controller.request))
     else
       false
     end
   end

   def user_name_and_password(request)
     decode_credentials(request).split(/:/, 2)
   end

   def authorization(request)
     request.env['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION']   ||
     request.env['X-HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'] ||
     request.env['X_HTTP_AUTHORIZATION']
   end
  
   def decode_credentials(request)
     Base64.decode64(authorization(request).split.last)
   end

   def encode_credentials(user_name, password)
     "Basic #{Base64.encode64("#{user_name}:#{password}")}"
   end

   def authentication_request(controller, realm)
     controller.headers["WWW-Authenticate"] = %(Basic realm="#{realm.gsub(/"/, "")}")
     controller.render :text => "HTTP Basic: Access denied.\n", :status => :unauthorized
     return false   
   end
 end
end

pastie

The solution is to break the :authentication_request method inside the controller.

module ControllerMethods
  def request_http_basic_authentication(realm = "Application")
    #HttpAuthentication::Basic.authentication_request(self, realm)
    authentication_request(realm)
  end
      
  def authentication_request(realm)
    headers["WWW-Authenticate"] = %(Basic realm="#{realm.gsub(/"/, "")}")
    render :text => "HTTP Basic: Access denied.\n", :status => :unauthorized
    return false    
  end
end

BOOM

UPDATE:
I changed the way I did this.

controller.send(:render, :text => "HTTP Basic: Access denied.\n", :status => :unauthorized)

It's now forked and fixed on GitHub