How to create basic LOGIN procedure

This PHP stuff is still pretty new to me (still prefer IBM's NetData), so I need help to create a login procedure for a website. The point being to make sure only authenticated people can access the admin pages and post/edit news items and stuff. Should be simple, huh? Anyways, the three objectives are: 1. Login that checks the username and password with a user defined table in a MySQL database. Not actual authentication for the database! 2. Store the username and load the e-mail for that user from that table and store them both as a session variable. 3. Make sure that none of the pages in that directory works unless you're athenticated Help? Is there some ready function for all of this that I haven't found? So far I've only run across the actual database authentication, but I don't wanna add users to the database. /Kristoffer (from www.NataliePortman.com)