Unified Logon for one-click services?

Is there some way I can provide unified logon for the various services I can add?

For example, suppose I add a phpBB, and a file upload area, and a blog -- is there some service or software that allows me to unify log-in to the site? Forcing people to have separate accounts for three services from the same site seems so... '90s.

Considering each software is designed by a different group of developers, their database structures are rather different for the user login information table(s). So no, unless you did a *lot* of hacking the software up (you or DreamHost rather, in this case), it wouldn't be possible.
Unless someone comes out with some utility that can act as a bridge between these softwares (which occasionally *does* happen!), I don't see it happening anytime in the near future either ;/

There are a number of Content Management Systems that have built-in features like blogging, forums, and limited file uploading.

These built-in features will, of course, share a sign-on.

It is also for these products that you will find "bridge" plugins that let you replace the built-in features with more specialized apps. For instance, Joomla! provides a built-in forum, but there is a plugin that lets you use phpBB as a forum for your Joomla! site with single-sign-on.

I *think* the way most these bridge plug-ins work is by bridging the user creation process. You then just have to configure the session cookie to be the same for both systems.

I never use Joomla... but can't it be done through there, either as it's own feature, or some sort of plugin?

I would think a CMS like that could easily work it in somehow when adding community features. Assuming you start out with the CMS as a base, rather than later try to connect a bunch of different installations of various scripts.

I figured there was something out there.

I take it that it only works if you start from the CMS, then build from there, if it's based on user creation?

It seems like there would be problems trying to merge existing forums, etc... together, since two people could have chosen the same user name at some point.

I'm building this from scratch, so I'll give Joomla a spin.

Do you know if I can provide Joomla log-in from a form of my own? (I e, I install Joomla at mysite.com/stuff/, and the login form is mysite.com/index.html).