Beginning PHP and MySQL: From Novice to Professional Fourth Edition

Chapter 14. Authenticating Your Users

Authenticating user identities is common practice not only for security-related reasons, but also to offer customizable features based on user preferences and type. Typically, users are prompted for a username and password, the combination of which forms a unique identifying value for that user. In this chapter, you'll learn how to prompt for and validate this information using a variety of methods, including a simple approach involving Apache's htpasswd feature and approaches involving comparing the provided username and password to values stored directly within the script, within a file, and within a database. In addition, you'll learn how to use the Auth_HTTP PEAR package, test password strength using the ...