Creating the Login Form

The HTML form will contain just two fields: username and password. Both are required.

Open a new file in your text editor and type the following HTML:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Login</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Login to Secret Area</H1>

Begin your form. Assume that the method is POST and the action is a script called do_authuser.php:
```
<FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="do_authuser.php">
```

Create an input field for the username with a text label:

<P><STRONG>Username:</STRONG><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="username" SIZE=25 MAXLENGTH=25></p>

Create an input field for the password with a text label.

<P><STRONG>Password:</STRONG><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="password" NAME="password" SIZE=25 MAXLENGTH=25></p>

Add a submit button, and then close your form and add some more HTML so that the document is valid:
```
<P><INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" NAME="submit" VALUE="Login"></P>
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>
```
Save the file with the name show_login.html, and place this file in the document root of your web server.
Open your web browser and type http://127.0.0.1/show_login.html.

You will see the login form, with text fields for the username and password as well as a submit button.

Next, you create the back-end script for the login form.