Different user roles for logging in with PHP and Mysql - php

Question

I have a project coming up for doing Admin functions so my question is this. I will try and be clear as possible.
I will have one SUPER-USER who updates all information for other regular-users/people(being our clients).
The clients/regular-users when they log in will only see their info and download files uploaded by SUPER-USER and not see for regular-users.
So if you are Client:#01 you will see the dashboard (welcome page) and your info. Can anyone suggest possible database designs for this.
How to use left/right sql-joins between the user and files table?
UPDATE
I have a users table as well as a company table that the user belongs to. So essentially I want something like this::
$sql = select everything in the users table where the username and pass = to the given form, then left or right join that username to the company that he belong to.
Then they will see their information. if logged in successfully. Because user #01 belongs to company #03 /#01 etc...
USER TABLE looks so
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`fname` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
'lname` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`username` varchar(50) ,
`password` varchar(100) ,
`company` varchar(50) // the company name that ther user belongs to
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
COMPANY table
'id' int(11) not null auto_increment,
'user_id' int(11) //This is to tie the users to this table
'description' varchar(text),
'filename' varchar(25) not null,
'mimetype' varchar (25) not null
PRIMARY KEY ('id')

Answer 1

Well, it depends on how simple or complex you want to go. with something like this I usually will keep it relatively simple and have a main user database (for all users) example:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `user` (
`user_id` int(255) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`user_name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`user_pass` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`user_permissions` tinyint(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
`active` tinyint(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT '1',
`date` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MYISAM;
Then I would have possible a second table of permissions depending on how many permissions I was going to have. If all you are going to have is users and super users then you could probably just assign users a value of 0 and then super user a value of 1.
Then in your PHP script it would treat the users different based on their "user_permissions" value.
Now if you are intending to have lots of different levels of permissions then I would definitely create at least one more table to define permissions example:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `permission` (
`permission_id` int(255) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`permission_name` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`permission_value` int(10) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MYISAM;
Then in the permissions table you could assign all sorts of different permissions... read, write, publish, admin, regular user, super user etc.
This is just a very simple starting point. hope that helps.