Question : login session?

I run simple perl scripts with text delimited databases with a few of my websites, some actually do get pretty elaborate.  I would like to create sometype of "session" when someone logs on to a site, such as "user name" "password", and at that point they are logged on and can move around site where allowed.

Is this done with cookies?  If so, how.  Or with sometype of server session settings?  Decent perl programmer, new to session of logons...I have done it simply before with "hiddens" or algorithm to check against a user database.  There has got to be an easier way!

Thanks...

Answer : login session?

I use CGI::Session for this. It's very easy to use, runs on any platform and webserver, and can use a number of backends for session storage.
It comes with good documentation, including an explanation how to do login sessions. See http://search.cpan.org for the details.

If you need more detailed info, don't hesitate to ask.