Web site authentication

[perlcoder]

Please could you advise on the best way to password protect certain
areas of our site. We are using Dreamweaver UltraDev 4 to create our web
pages and our site is hosted on a NT box.

The senario is that we wish to use our list of members, with unique
membership numbers, and only allow them access (These details are
currently contained in an Access 2.0 database). We wish to generate and
issue their passwords and add to them as new members join and remove
where necessary. Initially we would have to create approx 2000 member
accounts. We do not want to allow people to sign up on the site. What is
the best way to go about this?

We would also like to implement a message board in this members section.
We would like to allow members to post messages with an alias once they
have logged in, but for us to know which member posted the message.
Again, what is the best way to go about this?

Any help you can give me in the right direction will be very much
appreciated. Thanks in anticipation.

 

[stillflame]

hmm... the TicketAccess mod_perl module for apache does a decent job of this, but i doubt you're using apache. the design is pretty simple, mostly just using cookies to make sure the user is a member, and it's outlined in one of the common perl books (i'm thinking it's in the cookbook, but i can't remember)... i'm not really sure where else you should look - you could try the O'Reilly book, "Web Security and Commerce", although i don't know how much of it would be applicable to you, it may at least familiarize you with the area you're working in.
sorry i couldn't help more. "If you think you're too small to make a difference, try spending a night in a closed tent with a mosquito."