help plz

Are you using a database? This is the best way to log this kind of thing.

Create a table in the database:

logId INT(20) auto_increment primary key
username VARCHAR(50)
clientIP VARCHAR(15)
pageName VARCHAR(50)
time TIMESTAMP current timestamp


Then in your script at the top of every page just insert into the database like the below.

- Christopher McCann

$clientIP = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$pageName = basename($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']; 
$queryResult = mysql_query("INSERT INTO log (username, clientIP, pageName) VALUES ('{$username}', '{$clientIP}', '{$pageName}') ", $connection);
                                              

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Sorry Ray - I didnt notice you had already posted!

@christophermccann: - hey, not a problem.  We are all here to help each other.  Sometimes it is hard to read between the lines of a question, and you may have done a better job than I did with this one!

dear ray
it is a small code it and thanx for posting bye..

dear
christophermccann thanx for your help man
but is in it better to send the log to an email?

A very good book that may help with the data base related questions is available here:
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/phpmysql4/

Useful as a tutorial and reference, it has been a staple of my professional library since V-1, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  

And I agree with christophermccann about using email - it is the wrong tool.  For one thing, if you are bombarded with "hack" attempts to log into your site, you will send so many emails that you will look like a spammer.

You might consider using sleep() to force a two second pause whenever you process a login attempt that is invalid.  It should help your performance overall.

If you want to take a more active approach to security, follow the work of Chris Shiflett (the security expert, not the Foo Fighter) who wrote the book, literally, on PHP security.

You can also put these things in log files instead of flooding the database. I guess log files would take less space compared to database. Experts please comment

I also highly recommend the Chris Shiflett book. I read it recently and it completely changed my perspective on web app security.

@shaunak - Id only be concerned about file read/write times. I tend to find its faster to insert into database than write to a file but I could be wrong about that.

I also don't like the lack of interactivity with a text file.

With a database you could for example query access attempts to a certain page. It would take a little longer to do this with a txt file.

I think the log files might be OK, too.  It depends on activity.  If there is a lot of activity, the DB will give better performance and will be easier to query.  Log files will take less space, but with disk storage costing less than toilet paper, you can hardly worry too much about + / - a kilobyte here and there.

A lot of these kinds of projects seem pretty important at first, and then are found to be a tempest in a teacup, so whatever choice is made I would not spend too much time on it.