Re: How to Find Online Users?

[Justin Pasher <justinp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

solprovider@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> On 9/17/08, André Warnier <aw@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>   
> > Justin Pasher wrote:
> >     
> > > amiribarksdale wrote:
> > >       
> > > > What is the "standard" way to determine whether a user is indeed logged
> > > >         
> > in to
> >     
> > > > a site and online right then? I have a web app where users log in and
> > > >         
> > get a
> >     
> > > > cookie. Part of it is the sessin cookie which expires at the close of
> > > >         
> > the
> >     
> > > > session, and part of it is a longer lasting authentication cookie. Am I
> > > > supposed to use the session cookie for this? Does it have to be stored
> > > >         
> > in
> >     
> > > > the db so it can be timestamped?
> > > > Amiri
> > > >         
> > > Since HTTP is a stateless protocol, it requires a little creativity to
> > >       
> > track "online" users. One way is to have a table in a database that keeps
> > track of a person based upon their username/IP address and the last time
> > they loaded a page. For example
> >     
> > > * Client visits a page
> > > * Add/Update a row in the table with the client's username/IP address and
> > >       
> > set the timestamp to the current time
> >     
> > > * To retrieve a list of "online" users, pull all rows in the database with
> > >       
> > a timestamp within the last X minutes (for example, 10 minutes).
> >     
> > > You could then periodically delete any rows from the table that are older
> > >       
> > than X minutes or hours. This would help keep the size down. The username
> > for a client would be based upon a cookie or session information stored
> > within your page.
> >     
>
> A more efficient table would contain all visitors with the timestamp
> of the last visit rather than adding a row for each visit.  You must
> already have a table of all visitors so this only requires adding a
> "LastVisited" field/column.  The data could also be queried for
> visitors that have not visited in the last 6 months.
>   

Yes, that is why I said "add/update a row" the row and not just "add a 
row". A new row for each page request could quickly lead to a bloated 
table if someone wanted to be really mean to your site.


--
Justin Pasher

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP Server Project.
See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info.
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  "   from the digest: users-digest-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx