Website logging

[Mudsaf]

I'm wondering can you really have too much logging on your website.

 

Currently i'm logging data with

• SQL database logging
• Mail function to own error log email <made this because SQL might be down>

Wondering should i make ip-related .txt file logging also if mail & sql servers are off?

[Don E]

I guess that is up to you really but what really matters is what you will do with the information you collect/log. In all fairness to the users of the internet that visit/use your site, it would be nice to have some kind of policy that explains what you're going to do with their info, what you collect from them while visiting your site etc; that's if you're going to do anything with it etc.

 

As for too much logging on a website, just look at some of the "power house" websites out there like Facebook etc. They literally log and I may be wrong but they literally log almost everything you do on their site. Even when you're typing in your status update, or commenting, all that is being recorded and then used for advertising purposes on getting ads on your page depending on what you 'like' and talk about on facebook. They send out emails from time to time to their users explaining their privacy policy and what goes on with their info while on facebook but who knows what they're hiding and not really telling us. Recently I discovered that while making posts or comments on a public page, like say for the TV show The Walking Dead or comment on a image there, people on my friends list where getting notices on their newsfeed of what I was doing and saying on those public pages. I did not know that my comments and activities on public pages on facebook were 'visible' to my friends. Personally I feel that's private because what if what I am interested in a public page, I don't want my friends to see or know about for example? It's like your friends and relatives get text message notices when you visit a public place out somewhere like a certain bar or some social event you like to keep private. Anyhow, I learned that you can't do anything about it on facebook and it's 'how facebook works'.

[Mudsaf]

Yea some kind of policy page sounds good, but i assume that at my page there is nothing to hide since all data would be away in password protected folders or at database. My page currently has Shoutbox which kind a "logs" anyways even tho you should because the shouts will be always in database either hidden or visible.

 

By the logging at the moment i meant mostly SQL-errors and that kind of logging.

[Ingolme]

Logging PHP and SQL errors is probably all you're going to need.