How to protect site with cookies

I'd like to protect the site, so the user enters the site only through main page. I was able to solve this problem with mod_rewrite. But I;d like to try another method. I'd like to use cookies.
Can someone help me to find the information, regarding using cookies to protect the site. As I understand it should work in the following way:
On the main page the client receives the cookie and stores it in the memory.
To access any other page apache server will check for a valid cookie in the client's memory if there is no such cookie - the client should be transferred to main page.
So, I'd like to use cookies and some server side verification method (I don't want to use perl,php,asp or any other languages which I need to insert on every page, because I have some ZIP file son the site and I want to protect them too).

Thanx in advance.

There are several Apache modules that might help you implement a cookie based authentication/authorization scheme.

Try:

http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Apache-AuthCookie
http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Apache-AuthTicket

But be ware, not everyone surfs with their cookies on, unless your require it explicitly from your user base.


Carlos