Log file and databases

[Randy Terbush <ra...@dsndata.com>]

I've been working my way up to some changes that are badly needed
for my site regarding logging.  I would like to throw out a few
thoughts and get some feedback regarding the direction that the
group would like to go with logging in general.

Thoughts....

CLF is too restrictive (we have said this before)

It would be nice to be able to log *all* of the server
request info into a database format.

I have implemented a Perl-CGI approach and can log the CGI
environment to dbm logfiles.  However this requires the
index.cgi approach in every directory.

Questions....

Some new members of this group mentioned that they were working
on Sybase interface? Did this include logging?

With some recent discussion regarding logging and security issues,
would it not make sense to let the parent process running as root
handle all of the logging? (non-forker)

Any comments on the system load that could be generated by the
above mentioned index.cgi approach?

Related to the Perl-CGI approach, there is an interesting API
developing that can spawn "Minisvr" processes to provide some
statefulness to the session. Comments?

There are several public domain databases out there that would
be relatively easy to add support for. ie Msql, Postgres96, DBM.
Any comments on preferences?

Should the logger be a separate program?


I am at the crossroads on this, and there are many options.
Comments welcome.

-Randy

Re: Log file and databases

["Roderick Murchison, Jr." <mu...@Newbridge.COM>]

On Mon, 8 May 1995, Randy Terbush wrote:

> Questions....
> 
> Some new members of this group mentioned that they were working
> on Sybase interface? Did this include logging?

We currently have all authentication working via virtual passwd and group 
files in a Sybase database, but have not pushed logging to the database 
*yet*.  Our final round of testing is going on right now on the Apache 
server with Sybase'd authentication, and after that is deemed stable we 
will begin work on other goodies like logging directly to the database.

The one big bonus that we saw (aside from excellent response time, since 
we will have several thousand accounts shortly) with the Sybase 
authentication was security.  We have the database on the other side of 
an Eagle Raptor firewall, and the www daemon makes queries through it for 
authentication.

-r