Setting PHP Authentication manually?

I am trying to build a login page for client project review site. I DO NOT want to prompt the user for username and password with header calls to the browser. I don't want the authenticate dialog box to pop up on the client browser; I want to collect the username and password on a PHP or HTML page--I need to collect more data than just username and password. But when the user submits the login data, I want to set authentication credentials that work just as though the user entered data in the pop up. How can I do this with PHP? Can I set $PHP_AUTH_USER and $PHP_AUTH_PW manually? If so, does this set the Web server's authentication values for user name and password? If not, how can I use PHP to set authentication credentials that the Web server recognizes? Also, if I don't prompt the user with header( ) calls, how do I get the authentication cache on the client browser to store the auth data? Any ideas? Please help. Thanks. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Laura Harley Sr Web Architect and Principal Manager Design Interactive, LLC PO Box 17356 Alexandria, VA 22302 Tel: 703-578-1544 Website: http://www.designinteractive.com