I was thinking since some time already about mirroring between elog servers, 
and actually started already some implementation.

The problem with mirroring on the file level does not work. Assume two 
servers "serv1" and "serv2". Then assume that one message gets submitted on 
serv1 and at the same day another message gets submitted on serv2. Now you 
have on both servers a file 030726a.log, but you cannot copy this file 
simply from one server to the other, since you would overwrite the message 
submitted on the other server. Furthermore, you need file level access, 
which is maybe easy between your laptop and your desktop computer, but not 
if the two mirror servers are in different countries. Like in our 
collaboration we have three servers located in Switzerland, Italy and Japan 
(meg.psi.ch, meg.pi.infn.it, meg.icepp.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp), where we cannot 
have direct disk access.

So what I propose is the following mirror scheme:

o Each elog server may contain a list of mirror servers in the configuration 
file

o Each elog server calculates an MD5 checksum from all local messages

o Synchronization between servers can be triggered manually (by clicking 
on "Synchronize") or automatically at a given time and interval

o On Synchronization, the elogd server fetches the MD5 list from the mirror 
server and compares it with the local list

o If a message has been edited remotely but not locally, it's fetched and 
stored locally, same in the other direction

o If a message got edited on both sides since the last synchronization, the 
user is asked to resolve the conflict (keep local or keep remote message)

o If there is a new message locally, its submitted at the remote server, but 
with the same submission date/time as locally, same in the other direction

o If new messages are present on both sides, their message ID is changed so 
that it is unique, then they are copied over. If there are already replies 
to this message, their link (using the message ID) is changed accordingly

So I plan to implement this scheme in the next time. The MD5 checksum is 
already there. If anybody has comments or additional wishes concerning 
mirroring, telling them right now would be great, since I then can 
accomodate them easier during the implementation.

- Stefan

> Is this possible?  If so, could you provide an example:
> 
> I'm trying to find a way that when you do a search, that you can filter 
> entries using ( = , <>, AND) on one or more attributes.
> ex:  Find all workstations for this subnet, but exclude a particular one.
> Thats the basic idea.
> 
> Can it be done? If so, how?

No, it cannot be done right now, but it's on the wishlist since some time. 
So I added your vote there.

> I know there's an item on the wishlist for password expiration, so how 
> about account expiration..?? (after so many days of inactivity).

Ok, added to the wishlist.

> Another plea on my part, for Elog to allow for authentication via external 
> database - such as LDAP, so we wouldn't have to maintain another user 
> database.

I had that request more than once. The problem with it is that I cannot 
implement it, since he have no LDAP server here at our institute to try it. So 
if someone teaches me how to do LDAP authorization correctly, I can put it in, 
but not before.

> Good day! I´m a german guy so my english is not the best sorry for this...  
> I have my Elog completely configured now have I still another problem I 
> would like with a new entry a E-Mail address to select to be able itself 
> where the again provided entry am then hang-sent can me there someone 
> help?  already the whole has after forum answers scanned.  Thanks David

I'm German as well, but cannot understand your question. Can you write an 
email in German directly to me?

Ich kann Deine Frage leider nicht verstehen. Kannst Du sie mir direkt in 
Deutsch per Email schicken?

> The width of the textarea after pressing reply is too large. 
> The problem is that the algorithm that searches for the longes line
> looks for the next '\r' which it does not find and therefore takes the
> number of characters in the text to be the width of the longest line.
> To search for '\n' instead should solve the problem.  Please find the 
> diff output below.

Ok, implemented, thanks.

> Boolean attributes were not displayed correctly in version 2.3.9.
> Patch is attached.

Yes, implemented, thank you.

> I am trying to create an issues logbook where I have defined an attribute 
> so I can track who this issue is assigned to. In order to get a drop-down 
> list of users of the system to show up for that attribute (when creating a 
> new issue), I have to type in the whole list of users in the config file. 
> The problem is that whenever a user self-registers, I have to go into the 
> config file and add that user to the list. Is there a way to write 
> something like this:
> 
> Options Assigned To = $user_list

This is not possible right now, but I will consider implementing it some time.

> There are some errors in the generated HTML.  Most of the time
> the browser renders everything correctly but sometimes not.  Please
> check especially (http://validator.w3.org/):

I did so and fixed several errors. Now the W3 validator doesn't complain any 
more. New version under CVS.