login

Here's a good bit of info on Drupal login session length spotted in the Drupal.org forums:

Tired of logging in again and again to a Drupal site that keeps kicking you out? You can modify session length, i.e. the length of time that a logged-in session stays logged in. Open the site's settings.php file, and look for this line:

ini_set('session.cookie_lifetime',  0);

Replace that "0", or whatever number is there, with the number of seconds for desired session lifetime. The system will probably limit you to a max 2000000000 (two billion) seconds – which, at over 60 years, is extreme overkill. (Rule of thumb: One million seconds = 11 and a half days. Or just figure 100K seconds as a day plus change.)

Keep in mind, though, that letting users stay logged in for a long time has security implications (such as when a logged-in user's computer is appropriated by someone who shouldn't be poking around in the site). For more details and an alternate, module-based approach to setting session length, see the Persistent Login module.

If you're the administrator, you can log in with your ID and password and begin administering the site.

Where to log in

Depending on your site setup, your front page, or another page on the site, may show a login block like this:

Whether or not you see that, though, you can always log in by going to this page:

<your site domain>/user

or, depending on your site setup,

<your site domain>/?q=user

Provide the ID and password, and you're in!

Forgotten password

If you've forgotten your password, hit the "Request new password" link. You'll receive a new password by email, at the address specified when your (or another administrator) set up your account.

Yikes! A client's site suddenly turned up "Access Denied" for admins – up, down, and all around. Attempts to log in as almighty User ID 1 would simply spit the login screen right back again, or appear to "take" momentarily, yet return "Access Denied" for any following admin action.

Some horrible flub-up with user permissions? Can't even check and troubleshoot when the site won't let the admin in! And playing with cache, cookies, and other browser fiddly bits wasn't doing the job.