[thelist] htaccess / authentication, etc.

[Timothy Martens]

Hi Evolters,

I'd like the ability for my clients to be able to login to their 
protected directory (staging sites) from my home page either from a 
hyperlink which launches a prompt or (perhaps better?) through a form. I 
read a tutorial about how to setup authentication with htaccess, but it 
didn't make any mention of how to drive users to different directories 
based on their username & password. To summarize the task.

 - User on homepage (www.mysite.com)
 - Clicks on "client login" link  OR enters user/pass into form and submits
 - Authentication or Rejection occurs
 - Authenticated user is sent to their own directory (e.g., 
extranet.mysite.com/client-1, extranet.mysite.com/client-2, etc
 - Rejected user is fed a contingency page

This has been done a million times -- so rather than reinvent the wheel, 
can someone point me to a tutorial which might explain how to implement 
such a system? Of course the most secure way to do this is preferable.

Thx,

 t.