PHP: Checking Session State on Secondary Pages - php

Question

I am working with a PHP Login System from http://tutorialzine.com/2009/10/cool-login-system-php-jquery/ Just to give you a quick overview, I believe the tutorial sets up the variable in the following manner:
<?php
define('INCLUDE_CHECK',true);
require 'connect.php';
require 'functions.php';
// Those two files can be included only if INCLUDE_CHECK is defined
session_name('tzLogin');
// Starting the session
session_set_cookie_params(1*7*24*60*60);
// Making the cookie live for 1 weeks
session_start();
if($_SESSION['id'] && !isset($_COOKIE['tzRemember']) && !$_SESSION['rememberMe'])
..........
So far so good, except that I cannot carry over the session variables from the Main Login page to subsequent pages (which contain restricted content). Here is the basic code that I intend to place at the start of each restricted content page
<?php
session_name('tzLogin');
session_set_cookie_params(1*7*24*60*60);
session_start();
if($_SESSION['id']) <-- I believe I need more code here (incldue the cookie)
{
//If all is well, I want the script to proceed and display the HTML content below.
}
else
{
header("Location: MainLogin.html");
or die;
//redirects user to the main login page.
}
?>
As you can see, I am a total novice, but any help would be greatly appreciated. As of now, my restricted content pages keep getting redirected to the homepage even when I am properly logged in. Hence I suspect, the SESSION state is not being carried over. Thanks again!

Answer 1

You should probably make sure that you set the path and domain when you invoke session_set_cookie_params:
session_set_cookie_params ( 1*7*24*60*60, '/','.yourdomain.com')
See http://php.net/manual/en/function.session-set-cookie-params.php
(It's a good idea to set the httpOnly attribute as well.)
Additionally, make sure you actually assign some value to your session id key (it's not clear in your code sample that you do):
$_SESSION['id'] = 'some value';
Finally, you may want to use session_status() while debugging to verify you've actually started the session correctly (http://php.net/manual/en/function.session-status.php).