Is it possible.... ?

Hi all. This is simple problem but hard to solve. You can protect your web page using 2 basic methods; 1) Use .htaccess with .htpasswd 2) Use password request header and verify it in all subscripts Well my problem in short is this; Altho i like method 1, since it protects all content i still would need to store all my user information in MySQL database. Method 2 is not efficent enough, since it will protect only php files. Is it possible to declare .htaccess file for Apache to request password but in addition to set verification method pointing at some php file (auth.php) ? If it is possible then how to do it and what i would need? Thanx for you time.