SSL Questions

Pardon my ignorance. I'm not really a web-developer.

I'm building a family web-site, which would include a family address book that i want only people with accounts to be able to access...

I'm pretty sure I'm right in assuming SSL is a web security thing that can be used to enforce logins and stuff like that, but beyond that I don't anything about it...

Anyone that can point me towards a good reference or give me some tips would be much appreciated...

Thanks in advance. I'll go dig around devshed some more now.

>> assuming SSL is a web security thing

Unfortunately SSL just encrypts the web traffic between the visistors and the Web server. SSL doesn't do any good if you misconfigured your web server, and your web server is still vulnerable to all kind of exploits.

>> can be used to enforce logins and stuff

Technically you can restrict the present of client cert in order for one to gain access to your site. But practically that's not a way to enforce logins, you will need another kind of mechanism to handle authentication.