Logging into a website with PHP

[Anon]

Is it possible to login to a remote website using PHP?? I am able to 'post' the completed form with the username and password but I cannot login because no cookies or anything are being set. I was wondering if it was possible to somehow get PHP to use a cookie when logging into a website or something.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Anon]

you either have to build your own login set up. which can be a chore, or use an existing one like php secure pages or php_lib_login.

personally i would suggest php_lib_login (a shameless plug, i know). it's here:
http://homepage.mac.com/ghorwood/php_lib_login/

[Anon]

I am trying to login into a REMOTE website, that is somebody elses that I want to get info off (basically I want to get the URLs of loads of files without having to open up each one in a web browser) but I have to login to the site to be able to get the info I want.

I have already experimented with posting the required fields to the login script to process the login but it will not work because the site requires a cookie to be set before it will show the page. Basically I get the "not logged in" page when I echo the downloaded page to the browser. I was wondering if it was possible to be able to get around this anyhow so I can login to a remote website without actually having to open internet explorer.

[amcgrath]

Have you tried running Lynx from the command line via php (system(),passthru(),etc...)?