Login page with Remember me in PHP

Remember me option allows the user to automatically get logged in to the website without entering its username and password again.

To do this I am using $_COOKIE that store value on the client-side for detecting the user. Next time when the user comes it will automatically redirect to the homepage.

Encrypt the value before storing it to $_COOKIE and decrypt it while access. It will automatically destroy after 30 days.

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Table structure
Configuration
Login page
Homepage
Conclusion

1. Table structure

I am using users table in the example.

CREATE TABLE `users` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `username` varchar(80) NOT NULL,
  `password` varchar(20) NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

2. Configuration

Create a new config.php file for the database configuration.

Completed Code

<?php
session_start();
$host = "localhost"; /* Host name */
$user = "root"; /* User */
$password = ""; /* Password */
$dbname = "tutorial"; /* Database name */

$con = mysqli_connect($host, $user, $password,$dbname);

// Check connection
if (!$con) {
  die("Connection failed: " . mysqli_connect_error());
}

HTML

Create a login form that has two input elements for entering username and password, a submit button, and a checkbox for Remember me.

Completed Code

<div class="container">
 <form method="post" action="">
   <div id="div_login">
     <h1>Login</h1>
     <div>
        <input type="text" class="textbox" name="txt_uname" placeholder="Username" />
     </div>
     <div>
        <input type="password" class="textbox" name="txt_pwd" placeholder="Password"/>
     </div>
     <div>
        <input type="checkbox" name="rememberme" value="1" />&nbsp;Remember Me
     </div>
     <div>
        <input type="submit" value="Submit" name="but_submit" />
     </div>
   </div>
 </form>
</div>

PHP

Created two functions to encrypt and decrypt the userid –

encryptCookie() – This function takes a single parameter. Generate random key and assign to $key. I am using 'aes-256-cbc' cipher (You can view other methods here). Encrypt value by passing value to openssl_encrypt().

Append $ciphertext with $iv and $key separated by '::' and encode in base64 format and return it.

decryptCookie() – This function takes a single parameter. Explode the $ciphertext by '::' and assign to variables.

Pass values in openssl_decrypt() function and return it.

If $_SESSION['userid'] is see then redirect to home.php file otherwise check if $_COOKIE['rememberme'] is set or not.

If set then decrypts the COOKIE value to get the userid. Check if $userid exists in the users table or not. If exists then assign $userid to $_SESSION['userid'] and redirect to home.php.

Form submit

Check if the username and password exist in the users table or not. If exists then assign user id to $userid variable.

If 'rememberme' is POST then encrypt the userid and set 'rememberme' COOKIE for 30 days.

Assign $userid to $_SESSION['userid'] and redirect to home.php.

Completed Code

<?php
include "config.php";

// Check if $_SESSION or $_COOKIE already set
if( isset($_SESSION['userid']) ){
  header('Location: home.php');
  exit;
}else if( isset($_COOKIE['rememberme'] )){
 
  // Decrypt cookie variable value
  $userid = decryptCookie($_COOKIE['rememberme']);
 
  $sql_query = "select count(*) as cntUser,id from users where id='".$userid."'";
  $result = mysqli_query($con,$sql_query);
  $row = mysqli_fetch_array($result);

  $count = $row['cntUser'];

  if( $count > 0 ){
     $_SESSION['userid'] = $userid; 
     header('Location: home.php');
     exit;
  }
}

// Encrypt cookie
function encryptCookie( $value ) {

   $key = hex2bin(openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(4));

   $cipher = "aes-256-cbc";
   $ivlen = openssl_cipher_iv_length($cipher);
   $iv = openssl_random_pseudo_bytes($ivlen);

   $ciphertext = openssl_encrypt($value, $cipher, $key, 0, $iv);

   return( base64_encode($ciphertext . '::' . $iv. '::' .$key) );
}

// Decrypt cookie
function decryptCookie( $ciphertext ) {

   $cipher = "aes-256-cbc";

   list($encrypted_data, $iv,$key) = explode('::', base64_decode($ciphertext));
   return openssl_decrypt($encrypted_data, $cipher, $key, 0, $iv);

}

// On submit
if(isset($_POST['but_submit'])){

  $uname = mysqli_real_escape_string($con,$_POST['txt_uname']);
  $password = mysqli_real_escape_string($con,$_POST['txt_pwd']);
 
  if ($uname != "" && $password != ""){

     $sql_query = "select count(*) as cntUser,id from users where username='".$uname."' and password='".$password."'";
     $result = mysqli_query($con,$sql_query);
     $row = mysqli_fetch_array($result);

     $count = $row['cntUser'];

     if($count > 0){
        $userid = $row['id'];
        if( isset($_POST['rememberme']) ){

           // Set cookie variables
           $days = 30;
           $value = encryptCookie($userid);
           setcookie ("rememberme",$value,time()+ ($days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
        }
 
        $_SESSION['userid'] = $userid; 
        header('Location: home.php');
        exit;
     } else{
        echo "Invalid username and password";
     }

  }

}

4. Homepage

Within the homepage, I created a logout button.

On logout, button click destroy the $_SESSION and $_COOKIE variable and redirect to index.php file.

Completed Code

<?php
 include "config.php";

// Check user login or not
 if(!isset($_SESSION['userid'])){
 header('Location: index.php');
}

// logout
if(isset($_POST['but_logout'])){
 session_destroy();

 // Remove cookie variables
 $days = 30;
 setcookie ("rememberme","", time() - ($days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));

 header('Location: index.php');
}
?>
<h1>Homepage</h1>
<form method='post' action="">
 <input type="submit" value="Logout" name="but_logout">
</form>

5. Conclusion

For security purpose, I encoded the userid before storing it in a $_COOKIE and set the COOKIE expiry time according to your requirement.

You can view the PDO version of this tutorial here.

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Contents

1. Table structure

2. Configuration

3. Login Page

4. Homepage

5. Conclusion