What is a mature PHP solution to use for user logins?

Question

I have never really done any serious web programming, other than just a blog or a static web page. For a web application I am developing though, I need to have web site logins.

In an attempt to not reinvent the wheel, how can I implement logins? Is there a "drop-in" component somewhere? I'm not averse to fooling around with cryptography, but I don't really have much experience using PHP or web protocols.

I am using the CodeIgniter framework, so if anyone has any answers in that context, I'd be interested.

Answer 1

Allow me to recommend OpenID to you. Instead of implementing your own authentication scheme, you delegate authentication to an account provider that your user already has (such as Google, FaceBook, LiveJournal, etc.)

Libraries that implement OpenID on PHP for you include:

• http://wiki.openid.net/Libraries
• http://www.janrain.com/openid-enabled