Starting from some readings on mod_perl I built my authentication system that uses tickets (cookies) to authenticate users.
Some paths and the database connection will need to be changed to make this work, once the appropriate files are modified. Add the lines to the config files as shown in the text files. Create will also need to be changed to create the account in the proper table.
This has not changed in a while, and is in use on this site for authentication. Tested with mod_perl-1.99_11.