User authentication for multiple uses

notionlogic

I'm recently reached the situation where I am considering how to implement a way of allowing users to register just once at a site but have access to the full range of applications available - all with the same username/password.

For example, register with the "site" but be able to access a forum, classified adverts, chat room or secure area without having to login again. Obviously, each system might well have been written by a different company or group of people e.g. the forum might be phpBB (or phorum or xmb), the classifieds section might be my own, the chat room is by someone else etc..

Having done a search here already, I can see that others have the same problem but apparently no one has really cracked it yet...

The only real way forward that I can see is to implement a single "site login" system that collects all possible registration information from a new user. This is then used to populate each of the "user details" db tables of each installed system.

I've not convinced myself that this is the way forward though!

bastien

just use one page and sessions to track the user, you can even set up a user level variable to allow the user access to only some parts of the site. then on all subsequent pages you only need check for the variable(s) and have the user login if not set or allow them access if the session is set.

hth

bastien

notionlogic

...so how does that allow a visitor to login once but still have access to the different systems (written by different people) that could be installed without having to login again ?

bastien

all theses 'systems' are really just web pages with whatever interactivity with them. You need a master table to hold the users registration data, a script to populate the other registration tables if that is the way you choose to go, though the amount of duplicate data would be mindboogling.

And last but not least a script included on each page through a :

require("loggedIn.php");

that checks for the presence of the session variable and redirects to the log in page or allows the user to see the page requested...

the main thing here is to use the DB to the best advantage...one table to hold all the registration data and logged in status that is accessible by all the 'systems' ...you are gonna have to code this yourself.

goodluck

bastien

greg252

Couldn't you have the user log in, check againist db and set a cookie with value of access level? Then, just check the access level of the cookie before loading any script.

notionlogic

I guess I'm not getting the point across clearly enough so I'll try again - it may not help though ;-)

If I have a site with a forum script already installed (e.g. phpB😎 and I want to install another script (e.g. a classified ads script), both of these will have their own registration/authorisation systems included.

What is the best approach to allow a visitor to register/login once at my site but still get access to both scripts as if they had logged in to each individually?