[support] Authentication from an external script when using API's??

Hi, I am attempting to access the Drupal data from an external php script.. I am able to connect to drupal with the following.. //Bootstrap Drupal $drupal_path = '/var/www'; chdir($drupal_path); //Path to drupal $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] = '127.0.0.1'; define('DRUPAL_ROOT', $drupal_path); require_once './includes/bootstrap.inc'; drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL); So that's fine.. Now I am trying to access content that doesn't have anonymous view access so I need to authenticate the external script somehow.. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what API's I need to use to authenticate to drupal in order to access the content? Thanks..