Restricting access to Pages or folders

[lerro]

I need some guidance

I want to create users and user groups so as to enable access level control

What's the best way to implement restriction to pages and folders in php/mysql?

This is so that when a user logs in, access is only granted to areas based on assigned level.

I'm trying to figure out the simplest and best method as it may not make sense assigning permission levels to all pages as it means marking each new page when added.

[johnpeace]

A great way to get started with this is to use an authentication class that already exists/is proven.

I think the PEAR Auth class is probably as good as anything else out there: good documentation, open source reliability, tested and proven, in wide use.

Try reading the tutorial and see if you think this'll work.

[sneakyimp]

Being able to 'create users and user groups' tends to imply a bunch of PHP scripts to create, edit, delete users in a database table and some code that you put into a given page to check whether a user is logged in. I think you should use a database (MySQL is a commonly used one. PostGRE also good). You'd create a login form where someone supplied a username and password and the form would submit to a PHP script which checked the db table to see if that username/password combination exists and if it does, then you would set a $_SESSION variable which could be checked for in any give page to determine if a user was authorized.