Visitors log problem...

sporkolah

First of all, I'm sorry if this in the wrong section of the forum. I haven't got a clue what this should be categorized under.

I'm really new to databases and such, so please bear with me.

Okay, my problem is... I created a visitors page with a database to track the whole thing. Everything works fine, but for some reason unknown to me certain friends ip address changes here and there. I've got my visitors page set so when a friend comes, I can name their ip address so I know it's them each time they come back, but this doesn't work if they come back and their ip has changed slightly.

For instance:

if ($visitor == "84.169.227.212") {$visitor = "Pix or Rames";}

But sometimes they'll come and their ip address will have changed to something like 84.169.224.36

So I tried to fix this with:

if ($visParts[0] == "84" && $visParts[1] == "169") {$visitor = "Pix or Rames";}

but that didn't do a thing.

Anyone know how I can fix this?

My visitors page is here: http://cryptology.silver-blaze.net/visitors.php if that helps at all.

Thanks very much,
Kenna

crislewis

\Relying on an IP address to identify returning users is not at all reliable unless you know your users all use fixed IP addresses. Problems arise when their systems access the networj through a DHCP server which will allocate them an IP address dynimically each time they attach. Even using the approach you have tried (trying to second guess stable parts of the IP address) will fail if their login server changes or is rerouted. Also what happens when they roam and use remote access?

So what's the answer? Well, tried and tested are cookies. Establish a cookie on their system once they have registered (or visited first time if you don;t have a registration process). If you need something more secure then use cookies with a registration logon process. If the user then switches off cookies (or has a policy of not allowing them) then you can still identify them by the logon. Use Sessions to keep persistency during a browser session. A common combination is to use a logon to establish ID, set a cookie with an expiry of midnight and use sessions and or logon database tracking. This will enable you to id users each day but only require them to log in once per day. Set the cookie expiry accordingly if you want to extend or reduce this period.