IP Addresses

What format are they likely to come in?

[Nick_W]

Hi all,

I've never really recorded user IP's and have some questions about what sort of data to expect:

• Are they always numerical (if I use server-side scripting to get them)
  
• Will I ever get a blank one? (proxies etc)
  
• Anything else to be aware of?

Many thanks

Nick

[Chris_R]

yes
no
maybe

I would recommend using AXS. It is very easy to install and will allow you to see what is going on in real time.

[heini]

>AXS
Don't know if a tracking tool is what you are looking for, Nick, but I'm a huge fan of AXS. With a new site I practically watch all the time what's going on on the site. Two windows, permanently refreshed: our own active page, and the axs admin area. It gives you raw logs and some on the fly graphs.

<added> sorry for taking this offtopic, couldn't resist

[edited by: heini at 5:20 pm (utc) on Mar. 17, 2003]

[Nick_W]

Sounds neat, but I'm just looking to track registered members.

This is an effort to see whether folks sign up as 2 different users and abuse the system...

Nick

[Nick_W]

Hmmmm...

One more thing:

If I record members IP's how do I tell if they are dynamic/proxy?

Am I best recording the amount of times the IP changes on each login?

What would be the ideal way to see if users are using multiple nic's?

Many thanks again!

Nick

[aspdaddy]

You may have better results for proxies using a combination of IP address and user agent.

But then they could still use another machine or an anonomizer to trick you.

You might also want to consider privacy issues before tracking, there is some interesting stuff in the P3P doc on this.