Hey guys; I'm just wondering how website like Facebook, Google, or even Cemetech have accounts where you have to log in (username and password). You don't have to explain the whole process if you don't want to. Maybe point me to a link to read up on?
I found something called "accountify" on Google, but wanted to see if there were other ways.
Thanks

Basically, you have a table (database, db) that lists the username, account number, and their password. Ideally, you want to hash the password in some form (i.e. md5). When a user logs in, the submitted password is hashed and compared to the hashed password. If they match, a session is created.

I don't know of any good resources to link to. I also have zero experience in setting up such systems. So, expect discrepancies in my post and the actual process. But, the idea should more or less be the same.

As comic says, the simplest form of user authentication is storing usernames, passwords, and some other information in a database. You can then use PHP sessions and/or cookies to track logged-in users from the server and client side, and to manage logging out. You can do more complex things, such as storing extra information about each user in the database, and you should store hashes of passwords rather than the actual password for each user. Can you be any more specific about how much you're willing to do and/or learn to get such a system in place, or if you would prefer not to build your own implementation?