[RESOLVED] Sessions For Who's Online

MattG

I'm using sessions for when my users log in to my site/forum. I've had a look around but couldn't see anything related to what I want to do.

I was wondering if anyone knows of a way that I can use the currently open sessions to create a list of who's logged in (online) and where in the site they currently are?

I wan't something like this board has at the bottom where it says who's currently active. Is this possible with sessions and if not is there a better option that I could use?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Masna

I don't believe you can use sessions to tag online users. However, you can use a MySQL database, or simply a txt file, to store online users, and remove them from the database/txt file after a certain amount of time of inactivity.

MattG

Hmm, I was hoping for a way to do it without the need to constantly update a mysql database every time the user visits a page but that may well be the best/only option.

Thanks Masna.

Masna

Anytime. You can't use sessions basically because you have no access to a user's session. In another case, huge security flaws would be vital.

MattG

As a point of interest do you (or anybody else) know how the likes of vBulletin, phpBB, Invision etc do it?

I would imagine they register the sessions in a mysql database or via cookies and use it that way?

Masna

Creating forum software (from scratch -- ekinboard.com) myself, I know; strictly MySQL. Constantly updating a database for each and every single user.

MattG

Doesn't that put a bit of strain on the server though? Is it likely to slow down the site at all?

My site is primarily all database linked and of course the forum I've created uses it but I get the idea that it would slow it down quite a bit if multiple users are constantly updating a table whenever they go to a new page.

Masna

Hehe. Are you kidding? If the server couldn't take that, then I doubt very much it could take a single user upload. Trust me, it's the slightest strain imaginable (unless you forum locks 1,000,000 online users at once --> might strain the servers a bit heavily).

MattG

Excellent, well thanks for your help, I'll try it that way then.

Obviously when they log in a record would be created, they'd be given a unique id that links to their account, a field to log where they are in the site/forum when they were last active but what's the best way to handle their session from page to page and deleting their session when they've become inactive for a certain amount of time if they don't manually log out?

It looks like the forum software you created uses a mix of PHP sessions and MySQL - is that right?

Masna

MattG wrote:
Excellent, well thanks for your help, I'll try it that way then.

Obviously when they log in a record would be created, they'd be given a unique id that links to their account, a field to log where they are in the site/forum when they were last active but what's the best way to handle their session from page to page and deleting their session when they've become inactive for a certain amount of time if they don't manually log out?

It looks like the forum software you created uses a mix of PHP sessions and MySQL - is that right?

Yes, and yes! My latest software project is a MySQL Admin. It's 99.9% done = mysqlquickadmin.com. Feel free to check it out!

MattG

Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.

thorpe

The easiest way to impliment something like this is to use the [man]session_set_save_handler[/man] function to create a custom session handler. This session object can then store your session data in a database instead of the default flat file method. Once your session data is stored in a database it is very easy to run queries to see who is online... where on the site they are etc etc....