How to create a "members' area" in PHP?

[imajeenyus]

Hi,

I think I've solved the problem....

All the files that I want to be accessed by members only are located in a folder "secret" that is one level up from my "public_html" folder i.e. Joe Soap can't get the contents of that folder by entering it into his web browser.

I wrote a couple of PHP scripts. One, getfile.php takes a filename of something in the "secret" folder as its argument (e.g. getfile.php?do=members.htm) and sends the contents of the file to the browser. (Several if-loops deal with different file types and adjust the header "Content-type: " accordingly). It even works with HTML pages that contain images if the image is loaded via getfile.php.

The other script, authenticate.php acts as a login script. It basically uses a modified version of the vBulletin function verify_authentication (that's in /includes/functions_login.php) to check if a user is in the database. It also checks to see if the user has bought a subscription to the members' area (by checking the usergroupid) or if the user is an administrator. It then sets a cookie confirming that the user is authenticated. A login script, login.php, imitates the login text fields and button at the top of the main vBulletin page, and uses vbulletin_md5.js for encryption.

I do have the pages hosted online, but I'd rather keep the location secret for now! :nervous:

Thanks,

Lindsay

P.S. vBulletin is one helluva piece of coding!