Login / Cookies / Session hash Question

[dkartik]

Ok, I've seen a number of old posts about this process, but they don't seem to be helping out with the change of how the login system works, so I'm going to try and ask it from a different angle. I am an administrator for a University web site that already has a CMS, with an in-house php script designed to authenticate users and keep them logged in across the CMS as well as applications that have been developed outside of the CMS.

We just purchased vBulletin a few weeks ago, and I've been trying to figure out a way that we can use our script (which sets cookies for the user) to login users into vBulletin. I was just hoping that people that are more knowledgeable about this forum could help me figure out the process of the login system. I assume that if I want the user to be logged in from outside of the forum, I'll have to set the cookies as well as a session hash. Does anyone know how to duplicate those things. Also, is there any way to bypass setting the password cookie? Thank you very much in advance for any help that you guys give.