strange files on server

[Darren B]

can any one give me help on some weird files on my server.

under my acatalog directory i have all the usual files that actinic uses but i have also found some strange one lately that i cannot open or veiw (i use WS_FTP to look at the files on my server).

these files have names like
195Z152Z233Z99A1042445344B26967.session
acb70ccd6ZiptZaolZcom104101418B19741_00.save

there are about 25 of these now.

can anyone shed any light?

[harlequin]

session cookies and shopping cart save files

Hi there, the files you are referring to are first a session cookie,

195Z152Z233Z99A1042445344B26967.session

if you replace the 'z's in the first part of the string with . you get 195.152.233.99 and this is the ip address of the visitor, the rest of the string is actinics way to uniquely identify the visitor.

I think the second one is where someone has saved their shopping basket to retrieve later.

Both are Actinic files and nothing to worry about.

When you see some similar ones with .ord at the end, they are your orders.

[NormanRouxel]

The .session file is a customers shopping cart and personal details (if they've used your site before). I'ts an XML structured text file so you can open it in Notepad and see exactly who and what was in that cart before the customer departed.

Norman

[Darren B]

Thanks guys, I feel a bit silly now.

But in reply to you Norman I was orginaly worried because i can not open/copy/view or do anything to these files. It would be nice to know I can snoop at what our customers ae interested in.

Any ideas on how i can look at these files.

Darren

[NormanRouxel]

The Session script in Actinic makes the permissions on these file '000' so no one can read them. It only changes them briefly whenever it needs to read or write them, then immediately changes them back to be unreadable.

This is very secure but does mean that you'd need to chmod them using shell access or your FTP program before you could read them.

Norman

if you want to have some idea as to what customers are doing there's a patch somewhere (I don't have it) in the archives that allows you to log what they are entering into the search scripts.

[harlequin]

that patch would be handy if anyone knows where it is...

thanks

[Darren B]

thanks norman, If anyone knows were this patch is it would be usefull.

Also i have tried to CHMOD these files but i get access denied not owner. CHMOD failed it may not be supported on remote site

Yet i can edit all my own files

Cheers
Darren

[jxm28788]

did anyone find the patch? or figure out how to change the access?

also, at what point are these deleted? there seem to be some that have been there for hours - does that mean the user is still connected to my site?

[NormanRouxel]

Wow. A long lived topic - started January 2003!

Re logging search terms.

Here are a couple of items from the old forum I saved. Not sure if they're still relevant in V6.

********************************************************************************************

Seeing what customers search on.   This is in the wish list. In the meantime, try this:

Just find *sub SearchText* in SearchScript.pl and locate the lines

        #
        # Combine any multiple-white-spaces into single space
        #
        $$psSearchString =~ s/\s+/ /go;
        
Below this line insert 

        ACTINIC::RecordErrors("Search: " . $$psSearchString, $sPath);
        
and all entered search query will be recorded to error.err. Then the 
search related messages can be easily extracted from the file.

Hugh Gibson
Actinic Software Ltd.


********************************************************************************************

More on Seeing what customers search on.

In v4 find "sub SearchText", then the line:

my @SearchWords = split(/ +/, $sSearchString);

and add after it:

ACTINIC::RecordErrors("Search: " . $sSearchString, $sPath);

which provides space separated list of the search words in error.err.

To write it to a separate log file, use:

In SearchScript.pl in the site, locate "sub SearchText".

For v5, after the line

         $$psSearchString =~ s/\s+/ /go;

add the following:

open (LOGFILE, ">>" . $sPath . "search.log");
print LOGFILE $$psSearchString, "\n";
close LOGFILE;

For v4, after the line

my @SearchWords = split(/ +/, $sSearchString);

add the following:

open (LOGFILE, ">>" . $sPath . "search.log");
print LOGFILE join(" ", @SearchWords), "\n";
close LOGFILE;


This code puts each search phrase on a single line in the file 
"search.log" in the acatalog directory. It has to be downloaded by hand 
using FTP and analysed with whatever tools are available, e.g. Excel or 
Access.



********************************************************************************************

Norman

[pinbrook]

this is the fix for v6

simply open up ActinicConstants.pm with a text editor

Find the line:
#$::SEARCH_WORD_LOG_FILE = "search.log";


and simply remove the preceding hash#.
you can change the name in brackets which is the log created.

To view the entries, open the log file by entering your link e.g
http://yourdomain/acatalog/search.log in your browser.

[NickD]

Hi all - just a quick question about session/save files...

I too have noticed what appear to be spurious session files appearing - when you look at the content they seem to be effectively devoid of any customer info - there's a sample attached (namer changed to .txt to allow attachment here).

What I'm wondering is whether these might be triggered by non-customer activity such as web crawlers, harvesting activity etc.

I've also noticed that sometimes .save files which are associated with real orders do not get auto-deleted when the order is placed. Should they be, and if not why do only some of them live on?

Cheers

Nick

[NormanRouxel]

Tracerouting the IP address 66.77.73.81 (which is the IP address at the start of that session file name) come us with cr042r01-2.sac.fastsearch.net.

This is indeed a searching organisation so it looks like you're right.

Norman

[NickD]

Thanks Norman - I thought it would be something like that.

Just out of interest, how do you trace the IP address in the way you did?

Nick

[jxm28788]

if in windows go to a DOS/CMD prompt and type "tracert [ip]" where [ip] is the ip address

[jxm28788]

simply open up ActinicConstants.pm with a text editor

Find the line:
#$::SEARCH_WORD_LOG_FILE = "search.log";

Wow, just checked the contents of this file and there is some really useful stuff in there! Some thoughts on the contents...

1) There's one product I was thinking of getting that I *really* need to get into stock after seeing the search list

2) People search on some really weird stuff - "russell stover" (what?) and "buy my choices" (huh?)

3) people haven't really got the hang of 'quick search' (multiple entries of "quick search" on the log...)

4) people should really learn to spell!

5) and some people should lay off the drink before attempting to purchase more - "alchol", "alchool", "beer", "larger" in quick succession...(well, 1 out of 4 aint bad, not that it would have found any results anyway)

but I've got some really useful information, and some new product ideas (just as soon as I find out what a 'woodie' is as a lot of people seem to be trying to get one in my shop! )

I recommed you turn this facility on and take a look at it...