Hi, rather than hacking the Vanilla authenticator, I suggest the coding of your own authenticator: just copy

library/People/People.Class.Authenticator.php

Maybe you'll just have to tweak the lines under

// Retrieve matching username/password values

Then edit the conf/settings.php file and adding the following lines:

// My Authenticator
$Configuration['AUTHENTICATION_MODULE'] = 'People/People.Class.MyAuthenticator.php';

Note: sometimes the docs are useful too !

I'm not sure, reading your post, if you want to share the same session, or have it distinct.
Sharing is the default, under the name PHPSESSID. If your own site authentication use a specific session name (recommended, IMO, to avoid multiple software on the same host overwriting each others common variables such as "User"), just set the same name on the Vanilla session, by adding in your authenticator module a session_name()call:if (!session_id()) { session_name($this->Context->Configuration['YourSessionConfigVariable']); session_start(); }
BTW: I suggested to Mark, one year ago to add a session NAME to Vanilla. Should we add it to bug tracker?

I got it working using this post
http://lussumo.com/community/?CommentID=54642
:)
just cant figure out that people authenticator..

thanks