Authentication class with instantiation methods that are really long/cumbersome

[cgm225]

How does this authentication look?  I wish my instantiation of the class, particularly the method arguments were shorter/easier to work with.  Right now I feel like they are very cumbersome.  Would you organize this class differently?

 

Any ideas?

 

Thank you all in advance.

 

$mysqli = new mysqli(MYSQL_SERVER,MYSQL_SERVER_USERNAME,MYSQL_SERVER_PASSWORD);


class Authentication {
    
    //Declaring variables
    private $username;
    private $password;

    //Setting username and password
    public function __construct($username, $password) {
        $this->username = $username;
        $this->password = md5($password);
    } 

    /*
        The following passes the MySQLi connection, database, table, and field
        information to the class, which are then all used to generate a database
        query for finding a matching username and password in the table for
        login. Results of the query are then counted and, if equal to one, the
        provided username and password are passed to the setSession method.
    */
    public function doLogin($connection, $database, $table, $usernameField, $passwordField) {
        $connection->select_db($database);
        $statement = $connection->prepare("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $table WHERE $usernameField = ? AND $passwordField = ?");
        $statement->bind_param('ss', $this->username, $this->password);
        $statement->execute();
        $statement->bind_result($count);
        $statement->fetch();
        if ($count == 1) {
             $this->setSession($this->username, $this->password);
        } else {
            return FALSE;
        }
    }
    
    //Setting the provided username and password to session variables
    private function setSession($username, $password) {
        $_SESSION['username'] = $username;
        $_SESSION['password'] = $password;
        return TRUE;
    }
    
    /*
        The following passes the MySQLi connection, database, table, and field
        information to the class, which are then all used to generate a database
        query for finding a matching username and permission in the table for
        permission granting. Results of the query are then counted and, if equal
        to one, TRUE is returned.
    */
    public function checkPermission($connection, $database, $table, $usernameField, $permissionField, $permission) {
        $connection->select_db($database);
        $statement = $connection->prepare("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $table WHERE $usernameField = ? AND $permissionField = ?");
        $statement->bind_param('ss', $this->username, $permission);
        $statement->execute();
        $statement->bind_result($count);
        $statement->fetch();
        if ($count == 1) {
            return TRUE;
        } else {
            return FALSE;
        }
    }
}


$authentication = new Authentication("user1", "pass1");
$authentication->doLogin($mysqli, '_authentication', 'users', 'username', 'password');
$authentication->checkPermission($mysqli, '_authentication', 'permissions', 'username', 'permission_for', 'example_permission');

$mysqli->close();