Re: [MacPerl] Timeout script

[amunter@aaronsnt.salkeiz.k12.or.us (Aaron Munter)]

On Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:22:43 -0700 (PDT) blm@halcyon.com (Brian L.
Matthews) wrote:

>Philippe de Rochambeau writes:
>|I am currently looking for a way to log off somebody from a
restricted-access
>|server after a length of time lasting a few minutes. For instance,
once the
>|user has typed in his user id and password, a Perl script should let
him
>|browse through the website's pages for a total of 3 minutes, after
which the
>|script would disconnect him.
>
>I think in general, such a thing isn't possible. Web server's are
stateless--
>there's no concept of "logging on, doing stuff, logging off" like there
>is for an ftp server, for instance. A web server just gets a request
for
>a page, serves the page, and that's it. The requester of that page
(which
>doesn't have to be a human) could sit and stare at the page for an hour
>and there's nothing you can do.

While that's true, you can engage in some webfoolery to implement it.
If you assign a unique ID to each visitor upon login, you can keep track
of transactions by ID.  If a time has elapsed since the last transaction
for that ID (e.g., 180 secs), you can no longer allow the transactions. 

-Aaron
------------------------------------------------
Aaron Munter, Technology Development Coordinator
Salem-Keizer Public Schools, Salem, Oregon, USA
http://www.salkeiz.k12.or.us/


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