I don't know if this is the right forum. Forgive me if it isn't.

I'm currently building a website for my employer because she has been getting ripped off by the people who are currently handling it. There isn't anyone else around so we need to know how to do this ourselves. The problem is that I'm learning on the job.

Part of the site needs to be password protected. People will register first and then be able to enter the protected area with their email after registering.

Is there any particular software or service that you recommend for this?

You can use apache basic auth to limit access to certain files and folders. Your registration script will have to manage the .htpasswd file which has rather simple format. Authorization process will be totally handled by apache, you will only have to implement adding new users and changing passwords for exisiting ones.

You are lucky.
I was stumble-upon'ing, and just landed on that page
http://www.mtdev.com/2002/07/creatin...p-login-script
while your post was open.

I did not read it entirely, but it seems to approach it from a beginner and easy pov.
Just read it already, and ask if you need clarifications.
It's not a copy/paste login/register script, but it explains you how and what is needed to build one.

Hi

You can password protect a directory easily as follows. Let us consider we need to password protect the directory /home/username/public_html/sample

1) Change directory to /home/username/public_html/sample using cd command
cd /home/username/public_html/sample

2) Create .htaccess file
touch .htaccess [if it is already there you can use it no need to create one]

3) Add the following line to the .htaccess file

AuthUserFile /home/username/public_html/sample/.htpasswd
AuthName "Title for Protected Site"
AuthType Basic
Require valid-user

4) Create .htpasswd file in the same directory as .htaccess
touch .htpasswd

5) Create the password file using the following command.

htpasswd -c .htpasswd username
New password:
Re-type new password:
Adding password for user username

That's it you are done!!

<link drop removed >

I don't think that web server authentication is the best solution for your needs.
Are you using a database for your system? If you are planing lot of users, then storing user information in files will be slow. At least use a db backend for your web server authentication if you choose to go this way.
there are apache modules for different db's - postgre, mysql etc. for example mod_auth_pgsql