I am using PHP and Codeigniter to do this. Currently I am just saving a cookie to the user with their username and a $logged_in variable set to true. Then when they try to access a page, I check for the status of their $logged_in, and if they are, they’re free to access.
It occurs to me that this may not be the safest way to go about this. Is there a better tactic I should be using?
It’s not safe at all. Cookie is considered user input and it can’t be trusted in any case.
Use sessions instead.
Also you could use some sort of custom login encrypted code (I’d personally suggest SHA1) that is matched against the login code in the database and is refreshed every, let’s say, 5 minutes.