User Accounts- using passwords site-wide

[jhead]

What I need to be able to do, is this:

I have sections of a site where users create a profile.

They begin in free status, and can, if they like, upgrade to a paid status.

I want to be able to:

1) Have their usernames and passwords for the general site also work in the VBulletin forum (for all users)

2) Be able to grant them access automatically to a specific forum that is for paid users only. They will be able to pay for a paid membership (upgrade their free account) and then they will automaticallly have access to the paid users forum area.

if #2 is far beyond the scope of this forum-- then please at least inform me how to accomplish #1... in order to integrate all usernames and passwords from the main site into the VBulletin forums as well... very silly for them to have to have 2 sets of log-in info.

[Andreas]

1) Depends on how accounting for the rest of your website is structured. If you can modifiy that to automatically create vB-accounts or to use vB's user table for authentication then there should be no problem.
2) Two is quite easy and doesn't need a mod at all. Create a paid subscription which adds the user to to a specific usergroup. Give this usergroup access to your paid area and you're done.

[jhead]

Is there anyone out that has done both of the above (or especially #1), that would be willing to share your code? The site I will be adding this to most likely going to be lots of straightforward HTML, with some coldfusion...
Any assistance would be very appreciated.
Or if there is another thread that discusses this in detail... please point me to it. I could not find it.