Integration

Hi there, I'm looking to use PunBB for a site that I'm currently building (http://unknowntales.net/beta/).

The site itself, because of it's nature, has it's own user authentication system that I've built for it (and I'm not planning on changing it), but I want to give my users a forum they can use on the site as well, without them needing to sign-up for two different things.

Because of this, and the fact that I highly doubt I can edit PunBB to use my user database, I was thinking it might be a good idea to have a duel sign-up. I.e. when someone signs up for my site, they automatically get a forum account in the same name, with the same details.

Now I'm probably going to use my script for the purposes of getting users to sign up (and so disabling sign-ups on the forum), so what I was looking for is information on what I'm going to need to do, in the database, to complete the sign-up.

Actually, I don't think that itself is all that hard to find out myself, I just need to do some trial sign-ups on the forum and see what changes in the database, but I would be looking for some general advice and hints on what I'm trying to achieve... maybe from someone that's done something similar to this in the past?

Also, I'm kind of new to cookies... I use them, in addition to sessions, in my user sign-up system, but I kind of botched my way there without really understanding exactly what I've done, so if you could let me know what cookie variables the forum uses, that way I can make sure they match the ones my site uses, so users don't need to sign-in more than once.

Thank you

(Sorry for the long post, I hope you understand what information I'm looking for - I also hope that someone can provide that information)