A PHP login script (ADVANCED VERSION)

This script is base on PHP-Login-Advanced who is not maintained anymore.

A simple, but secure PHP login script with many features includes :

• users can register, login, logout (with username or email, password)
• captcha
• account verification via mail
• password reset
• edit user data (password, username, email)
• "remember me" / stay logged in cookies
• "remember me" supports parallel login from multiple devices <- NEW
• i18n/internationalization: English, French, German, Russian, Persian at the moment but it's easy to add a new language <- NEW
• possibility to manage some user access levels <- NEW
• a beautiful CSS style <-NEW
• gravatars

IT stuffs...

• PDO used for database access
• mail sending via PHPMailer (SMTP or PHP's mail() function/linux sendmail)
• Uses the ultra-modern & future-proof PHP 5.5.BLOWFISH hashing/salting functions (includes the official PHP 5.3 & PHP 5.4 compatibility pack, which makes those functions available in those versions too)

Screenshot

Live-demo

No live demo page available at the moment

Requirements

• PHP 5.3.7+
• MySQL 5 database (please use a modern version of MySQL (5.5, 5.6, 5.7) as very old versions have a exotic bug that makes PDO injections possible.
• activated PHP's GD graphic functions (the tutorial shows how)
• enabled OpenSSL module (the tutorial shows how)
• this version uses mail sending, so you need to have an SMTP mail sending account somewhere OR you know how to get linux's sendmail etc. to run. As it's nearly impossible to send real mails with PHP's mail() function (due to anti-spam blocking of nearly every major mail provider in the world) you should really use SMTP mail sending.

Installation (quick setup)

• 1. create database login and tables users and user_connections via the SQL statements in the _installation folder.
• 2. in config/config.php, change mySQL user and password (DB_USER and DB_PASS).
• 3. in config/config.php, change COOKIE_DOMAIN to your domain name (and don't forget to put the dot in front of the domain!)
• 4. in config/config.php, change COOKIE_SECRET_KEY to a random string. this will make your cookies more secure
• 5. as this version uses email sending, you'll need to a) provide an SMTP account in the config OR b) install a mail server tool on your server. Using a real SMTP provider (like SMTP2GO etc.) is highly recommended. Sending emails manually via mail() is something for hardcore admins. Usually mails sent via mail() will never reach the receiver. Please also don't try weird Gmail setups, this can fail to a lot of reasons. Get professional and send mails like mail should be sent. It's extremely cheap and works.

• To enable OpenSSL, do sudo apt-get install openssl (and restart the apache via sudo service apache2 restart)
• To enable PHP's GD graphic functions, do sudo apt-get install php5-gd (and restart the apache via sudo service apache2 restart)

Installation (very detailed setup)

A very detailed guideline on how to install the script here in this blog post.

Troubleshooting & useful stuff

Please use a real SMTP provider for sending mail. Using something like gmail.com or even trying to send mails via mail() will bring you into a lot of problems (unless you really really know what you are doing). Sending mails is a huge topic. But if you still want to use Gmail: Gmail is very popular as an SMTP mail sending service and would work for smaller projects, but sometimes gmail.com will not send mails anymore, usually because of:

1. "SMTP Connect error": PHPMailer says "smtp login failed", but login is correct: Gmail.com thinks you are a spammer. You'll need to "unlock" your application for gmail.com by logging into your gmail account via your browser, go to http://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha and then, within the next 10minutes, send an email via your app. Gmail will then white-list your app server. Have a look here for full explanaition: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/14257?p=client_login&rd=1

2. "SMTP data quota exceeded": gmail blocks you because you have sent more than 500 mails per day (?) or because your users have provided too much fake email addresses. The only way to get around this is renting professional SMTP mail sending, prices are okay, 10.000 mails for $5.

Security notice

This script comes with a handy .htaccess in the views folder that denies direct access to the files within the folder (so that people cannot render the views directly). However, these .htaccess files only work if you have set AllowOverride to All in your apache vhost configs. There are lots of tutorials on the web on how to do this.

How this script works

If you look into the code and at the file/folder-structure everything should be self-explaining.

Useful links

• How to use PDO
• Why you Should be using PHP's PDO for Database Access
• A little guideline on how to use the PHP 5.5 password hashing functions and its "library plugin" based PHP 5.3 & 5.4 implementation
• How to setup latest version of PHP 5.5 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Same for Debian 7.0 / 7.1:
• How to setup latest version of PHP 5.5 on Debian Wheezy 7.0/7.1 (and how to fix the GPG key error)
• Notes on password & hashing salting in upcoming PHP versions (PHP 5.5.x & 5.6 etc.)
• Some basic "benchmarks" of all PHP hash/salt algorithms

License

Licensed under MIT. You can use this script for free for any private or commercial projects.

Contribute

If you want to add new features etc, please contribute into the https://github.com/devplanete/php-login-advanced repo. Please commit only in develop branch. The master branch will always contain the stable version.

Support / Donate

If you think this script is useful and saves you a lot of work, then think about supporting the project:

1. Contribute to this project. Feel free to improve this project with your skills.