Willie Rust has a great two part series on using a SharePoint list as an Authentication provider. If you have a public facing site than consider this as an amazing alternative to using NTLM. Even if you dont have one, this is great experience for those who want to learn more SharePoint 2007 authentication methods. This walkthrough is great however breaking it down into steps would have been great.
After reading both parts, you will have a SharePoint list allowing you to manage your user profiles with web services and CAML queries taking care of the authentication enquires and last but not least, setting up user roles. Here are the required links:
- Using a SharePoint List as an Authentication Provider: Part 1
- Using a SharePoint List as an Authentication Provider: Part 2
If you want to look at a great example on custom authentication provider for SharePoint 2007, check out HOWTO: Configuring a Office SharePoint Server 2007 Publishing Site with Dual Authentication Providers and Anonymous Access.
