Chapter 11. Adding Password Protection to Administrative Links

One of the last things you need to add before you can call your blog "web-ready" is to hide the administrative links from users who aren't authorized to view them. In this chapter, you'll learn how to build a system that lets you create administrators and require them to log in with a password before they can create, edit, and delete entries on the blog.

Creating this system requires that you master the following tasks:

• Adding an admin table to the simple_blog database

• Building a function to place administrators in the admin table

• Using sessions to hide controls from unauthorized users

• Creating a login form that allows administrators to log in to the blog

• Writing code to check submitted form data and display its controls if valid