A modern, secure user authentication system, featuring email verification, password reset, CSRF protection, and more.

This project is designed to provide a secure and production-ready login/register system that can be easily deployed on any device using Docker. It follows best practices for authentication, input validation, and session management, making it a solid starting point for any web application requiring user accounts.

🔧 Core Functionality

• User Registration with Validation
• Secure Login with Session Management
• Email Verification using unique tokens
• Forgot Password and Reset Flow
• Responsive UI with modern design
• Clean Code and well-documented structure

🔒 Security Features

• Passwords hashed with password_hash()
• CSRF protection using unique tokens
• Input validation and sanitization
• Session hardening (httponly, secure, strict_mode)
• Email verification required before access to dashboard

🐳 Dockerized Setup

• PHP backend and MySQL database running in separate Docker containers
• Easily portable and deployable to any environment

🛠️ Tech Stack

• Frontend: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript
• Backend: PHP (PDO)
• Database: MySQL (MariaDB)
• Email: PHPMailer (SMTP-based)
• DevOps: Docker, Docker Compose

1. For Dockerized Setup (Recommended)

You must have the following installed:

1. Docker Engine

   
   

   • Version: 20.10+
   • Required to run PHP and MySQL containers
2. Docker Compose

   
   

   • Version: 1.29+
   • Used to define and run multi-container applications

2. Email Delivery (SMTP Configuration)

To use email verification and password reset, you need:

• Access to an SMTP server (e.g., Gmail, Outlook, Zoho, SendGrid)
• Valid SMTP credentials:
  • Host (e.g., smtp.gmail.com)
  • Port (usually 465 or 587)
  • Username
  • Password or App Password
  • TLS/SSL enabled

Note: If using Gmail, you may need to enable “App Passwords” and allow access for less secure apps (or use OAuth2 setup)

Step 1: Download and place the files in a directory of your choice without changing the structure of the folders.

⚙️ Step 2: Configure Email & Database Credentials

1. Open the php/config.php file.
2. Set the following variables with your own values:

// Database
$db_host = 'db';              // Use 'db' for Docker-based hostname
$db_name = 'login_db';
$db_user = 'user';
$db_pass = 'password';

// Email (SMTP)
$mailHost = 'smtp.yourserver.com';
$mailUsername = '[email protected]';
$mailPassword = 'yourSMTPpassword';
$mailFrom = '[email protected]';

💡 Use an SMTP provider like Gmail (with App Password), Outlook, Zoho, or SendGrid.

Step 3: Start the Project with Docker

In the root project directory:

docker-compose up --build

Step x: Shut Down the Project

docker-compose down