Handling session authentication in a web app

[Tom J. <tj...@do...>]

Hey folks,

I need to put together a web application to allow people to edit
attributes I've given them access to (password resets for the help desk,
radius info for the network guys, etc).

I'm pretty clear on what I need to do between the script and the LDAP
server, but does anyone have any suggestions on how to handle session
authentication?

I'd like to have a client log in to the web app with their uid and
userPassword, and then be able to mess with stuff according to the
permissions given to their object (so the script would bind to the
directory as the user).

Any suggesions on how to manage the session? Alternately, does anyone know
of any applications like this out there that I could tweak (other than
Netscape's DSGW, which has annoyed me on many occasions).

Thanks much,

Tom Jordan
University of Wisconsin Madison