[Phplogcon-dev] phplogcon without user managment

[Michael Meckelein]

> One question?
> 
> If Apache or IIS is used to authenticate users, how do you know which
user
> got authenticated?
> 
> Or does phplogcon not care? Single user web app.

Phplogcon does not care! Yes, some admins want to use it as a single
user app. 

I have a quick discussion with Rainer and he has a good idea, I think.
What's about to use a "hidden user" if phplogcon is installed without
user management. This means that in spite of user said "NO I want not
use phpLogCon's user management", phplogcon creates a user account. Also
during the install process phplogcon puts a _AutoLogin_User = Userid var
into config.php where the userid is the user account created for this
purpose. If a user name is set to _AutoLogin_User, phplogcon
automatically logins to this user account without any interaction from
the user.

[snip]
> But I suspect that in future
> version of phpLogCon most of the filter and config setting will be
stored
> into UserPrefs table.

Actually this is possible in the current release. In the user-config.php
page, the user can set "Save filter settings in database and load them
while logging in". But this does not mean that which each page request
phplogcon reads the filter options / user options from the database.

Let me elaborate a little in which way it works and what was our
intension. 

If you login to phplogcon, it reads the user settings from UserPrefs
table and store it into session's variables. Each phplogcon's page you
visit, it reads the settings from the session variable pool. 

About the following three pages in phplogcon and their relation with
database/sessions:

- User_Options
Here a user can set things he prefer like language, stylesheet settings
and so on. By "Update Config" the settings are stored into database and
into the current session vars.

- Filter_Options
Here you can alter your default filter settings which are used to
display data e.g. in Show_events page.
[quote from manual]
If User Interface is enabled and the option "Save filter settings in
database and load them while logging in" is checked, all filter settings
will be saved in database. Otherwise, they only will stay like this in
current session!

If User Interface is disabled, the settings will only stay like this in
the current session. Next time opening phpLogCon, they will be default.
[/quote from manual]

This means if user management is enabled, clicking "Update Config"
stored the filter settings in database and into session vars. You can
say that the user can define his default filter settings on the Filter
Options page. These filter settings are read during user login.

- Show_Events
[quote from manual]
Here you can see the events; listed in respect to the current filter
settings. Also you can use the quick filter, that allows you to override
(not overwrite!) temporally your current filter settings. This provides
a quick view on different filtered events, without going to the filter
options. You can also choose how much event's should be displayed per
page, color and search for an expression and search for a Host or IP.
[/quote from manual]

"override (not overwrite!) temporally your current filter settings" this
is the most important point. Clicking "Submit" does not change any
values in the database neither it change the filter settings defined on
the Filter_Options page.

Hold in mind, the form elements you see on Show_Events page are so
called "Quick Filters":
[quote from manual]
They will override the general filters while staying in Events Display.
They provide you quick changes for temporally viewing different and
little bit fine filtered events, without changing your general filter
settings.
[/quote from manual]

Hope it is clear how it works. If you have any questions or any concern
with this approach, don't hesitate to write ;)

Best regards,
Michael