Confused in sessions,login,etc

l_fhoenix_l

Hi there,
Thanks for your attention.
I have a big problem in understanding the algorithm of sessions.
I have a login script that works correctly with a table called Login that has 2 main fields(username&password) and some extra info fields(like lname,fname,etc) and I have a Forum table that has two fields 'username' and 'message'. I learnt how to connect them for sending messages,etc. but there is still a main problem. I want to change my login.php and other pages to recognize the user after he/she viewed other pages. Could someone describe the session id for me? and tell me how to solve this problem? please describe compeletely because i don't understand brief descriptions. Thanks again, Sicerely yours, Parsa.

kevinc

I don't really understand what you're trying to achieve here, your explanation is rather vague.

I'm presuming you're asking about user Authentication with sessions -- so i'll elaborate briefly on that.

The basic concept behind session authentication :

1) User Supplies Username & Password
2) Server receives information supplied via a FORM post
3) A PHP script will query the database, looking to see if there's a row in a table with the username and password specified by the user.
4) If a match is found, a unique ID ($PHPSESSID) or an md5() sum is generated, this is stored in a "Sess_Id" field (or derivative thereof) in the table, and updated with the generated amount.
5) Two sessions are registered. The first one being the userID of the user you have just authenticated, you retrieve this from your user table. This field should be an auto incrementing primary key.
The second being the generated, unique ID.
6) Now, you need to check, on every "Members" page as such, if the user has authenticated. You do this by comparing the value of the Sess_Id in the Table with the Sess_Id value in the session. -- If these two match, the user is authenticated. If they don't, the user is either not authenticated, or hasn't logged in yet.

I hope this helps... in future, please explain CLEARLY what your problem is. (Bearing in mind that English probably isn't your native language) Use simple words and sentences rather than complex, out of context ones.

Cheers!
Kevin