Laravel VisitLog

Introduction

VisitLog is a simple Laravel 5 package that can be used to log visitor information and save it into database.

Features

• Other than basic log such as IP, Browser and OS, it can also log Location information.
• Allows to log both unique and non-unique visits based on IP.
• Allows to cache the visits based on IP.
• Allows to log authenticated user info.
• Provides log viewer page out of box.
• Provides basic http authentication for app users.

Note: VisitLog cannot detect same user/IP coming from some anonymizer so it cannot differentiate that.

Screenshot

Note: Info in above screenshot is fake.

Requirements

• PHP >= 5.5.9
• Laravel 5

Installation

Install via composer

composer require sarfraznawaz2005/visitlog

For Laravel < 5.5:

Add Service Provider to config/app.php in providers section

Sarfraznawaz2005\VisitLog\VisitLogServiceProvider::class,

Add Facade to config/app.php in aliases section

'VisitLog' => Sarfraznawaz2005\VisitLog\Facades\VisitLog::class,

Run php artisan vendor:publish to publish package's config and migration file. You should now have config/visitlog.php file published. It will also publish migration file in database/migrations folder.

Run php artisan migrate to create visitlogs table in your database.

Config Options

• route : Route where visit log will be available.
• iptolocation : By default, only IP, Browser and OS info is logged. However if you set this option to true, it will also log Location info through https://ipstack.com/ service. Note: You will need to create account there and get your access key and specify that in visitlog config file.
• cache : If iptolocation is set to true, this option can be used to cache the results instead of requesting Location info each time from https://ipstack.com/.
• unique : If true, it will only log unique visits based on IP address. If false, it will log each visit even from same IP.
• log_user : If true, it will also log authenticated user info.
• user_name_fields : If log_user is true, this option can be used to specify name fields of user from your Users table in database.
• visitlog_page : If true, a default log viewer page can be viewed at http//yourapp.com/your_route to see all the logs. Here your_route is the first option above.
• http_authentication : If visitlog_page is true, this option can be used to show visit log page to only authenticated app users by asking them email and password via basic http authentication.

Saving Log Info

To save logs, just call save method of VisitLog facade: VisitLog::save();

Tip: If you want to save only unique logs based on IP, login or post-login page is good place to use the save method on because generally login page isn't visited again after user is authenticated. If you also want to save authenticated user, calling save method inside login post method seems to be good idea.

If however, you have set unique option to false and want to log all visits, calling save method in common location is good idea like base controller of your app.

Viewing Log Info

If config option visitlog_page is set to true, you can view all visit logs by browsing to http//yourapp.com/your_route.

Note: If you don't want to allow visitlog page to be publicly seen, set the option visitlog_page to false and now http//yourapp.com/your_route will result in 404 error.

In this case, you can still show log info in some authenticated area of your app by using all method of VisitLog facade: $visitLogs = VisitLog::all(); and it will give you Collection that you can iterate over and show in your own view file.

License

This code is published under the MIT License. This means you can do almost anything with it, as long as the copyright notice and the accompanying license file is left intact.