Hi,

I was wondering if anyone had a solution for my problem.
We are trying to run several books on one server. The books are grouped 
such as follows :

Group Users1 = Book1, Book2, Book3
Group Users2 = Book4, Book5, Book6
Group Users3 = Book7, Book8, Book9

We would like to give access to selected users to only their Group. So that 
for instance Users1 cannot access the books of group Users3. I was 
wondering if there is any notion of "User profile" or security per logbook 
Group implemented?

What we do for now is that we have 3 different PASSELOG files and for each 
Book we need to specify which PASSELOG should be used for authentication. 
This works fine except that we prefer that users do not see the other 
logbooks listed in the main menu nor the other "inaccessible" logbook tabs 
in the logbook view. Is there a way to hide these for them (but only for 
them)?

Tomas

> We would like to give access to selected users to only their Group. So that 
> for instance Users1 cannot access the books of group Users3. I was 
> wondering if there is any notion of "User profile" or security per logbook 
> Group implemented?

No, groups of users are not yet implemented, but it's on the wishlist and I 
added your vote for this item.

> What we do for now is that we have 3 different PASSELOG files and for each 
> Book we need to specify which PASSELOG should be used for authentication. 
> This works fine except that we prefer that users do not see the other 
> logbooks listed in the main menu nor the other "inaccessible" logbook tabs 
> in the logbook view. Is there a way to hide these for them (but only for 
> them)?

A (poor man's) work-around right now is to run three instances of elogd on 
three different ports, then use Apache as a proxy. I do this in this server 
for example. Under http://midas.psi.ch/elogdemo you see the public logbooks, 
while under http://midas.psi.ch/megelog you see some logbooks from an 
experiment here at our institute. The access control is completely separated, 
and you don't see the logbook tabs from the other group as well.

I have managed to get this to work (so far).

What I do is use a separate password file and directory for each log.

I haven't tested it with with the current version but it worked fine before
that. My testing consisted of creating a user in the main password file and
see if he could get to anything I didn't want him to. This may not be enough
for something that requires a high level of security. 

When I create a new user I move that line to the appropriate password file if
it isn't already there.

You will get an invalid user message and a prompt if you try access a log that
doesn't have your user name in the password file. 

I only have six people using it so this isn't much trouble.

I would like to see groups implemented to make this more manageable.

> Hi,
> 
> I was wondering if anyone had a solution for my problem.
> We are trying to run several books on one server. The books are grouped 
> such as follows :
> 
> Group Users1 = Book1, Book2, Book3
> Group Users2 = Book4, Book5, Book6
> Group Users3 = Book7, Book8, Book9
> 
> We would like to give access to selected users to only their Group. So that 
> for instance Users1 cannot access the books of group Users3. I was 
> wondering if there is any notion of "User profile" or security per logbook 
> Group implemented?
> 
> What we do for now is that we have 3 different PASSELOG files and for each 
> Book we need to specify which PASSELOG should be used for authentication. 
> This works fine except that we prefer that users do not see the other 
> logbooks listed in the main menu nor the other "inaccessible" logbook tabs 
> in the logbook view. Is there a way to hide these for them (but only for 
> them)?
> 
> Tomas

Robert, this is exactly what we managed to do as well. And it works fine. 
The only issue is that the users from one group can "SEE" the book names 
available to other groups. 

The solution Stephane suggested seems like the only possible right now.

Anyways, thank you for your answers, Robert & Stephane !

Tomas


> I have managed to get this to work (so far).
> 
> What I do is use a separate password file and directory for each log.
> 
> I haven't tested it with with the current version but it worked fine before
> that. My testing consisted of creating a user in the main password file and
> see if he could get to anything I didn't want him to. This may not be 
enough
> for something that requires a high level of security. 
> 
> When I create a new user I move that line to the appropriate password file 
if
> it isn't already there.
> 
> You will get an invalid user message and a prompt if you try access a log 
that
> doesn't have your user name in the password file. 
> 
> I only have six people using it so this isn't much trouble.
> 
> I would like to see groups implemented to make this more manageable.
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I was wondering if anyone had a solution for my problem.
> > We are trying to run several books on one server. The books are grouped 
> > such as follows :
> > 
> > Group Users1 = Book1, Book2, Book3
> > Group Users2 = Book4, Book5, Book6
> > Group Users3 = Book7, Book8, Book9
> > 
> > We would like to give access to selected users to only their Group. So 
that 
> > for instance Users1 cannot access the books of group Users3. I was 
> > wondering if there is any notion of "User profile" or security per 
logbook 
> > Group implemented?
> > 
> > What we do for now is that we have 3 different PASSELOG files and for 
each 
> > Book we need to specify which PASSELOG should be used for 
authentication. 
> > This works fine except that we prefer that users do not see the other 
> > logbooks listed in the main menu nor the other "inaccessible" logbook 
tabs 
> > in the logbook view. Is there a way to hide these for them (but only for 
> > them)?
> > 
> > Tomas

Today I found out that Apache 1.3.23 (and probably 1.3.24) has a problem 
with ELOG if used as a proxy server. Due to a bug in Apache, only one 
cookie is transmitted through the proxy at a time. This makes it impossible 
to log in into ELOG with user name and password (requires two cookies). 
Apache 1.3.23 comes with RedHat 7.3 for example.

To solve the problem, update Apache to 1.3.27.

See also http://bugs.apache.org/index.cgi/full/9655

It seems that maximal number of attachments is about 20. When you try to add
more, a new entry _is_ added to the logbook but the refernce to it is not
added to the web page.

> It seems that maximal number of attachments is about 20. When you try to add
> more, a new entry _is_ added to the logbook but the refernce to it is not
> added to the web page.

Uhhh, Mr. "monster of number of attachments" gave it's stroke! Well, we never 
had such large number of attachments so I forgot to put a waring in. The 
limit comes from 

#define MAX_ATTACHMENTS  20

in elogd.c which you can easily increase (as long as you have RAM!) and 
recompile.

> > It seems that maximal number of attachments is about 20. When you try to add
> > more, a new entry _is_ added to the logbook but the refernce to it is not
> > added to the web page.
> 
> Uhhh, Mr. "monster of number of attachments" gave it's stroke!

:)  I wanted to post a message with ~200 attachments.

>Well, we never 
> had such large number of attachments so I forgot to put a waring in. The 
> limit comes from 
> 
> #define MAX_ATTACHMENTS  20
> 
> in elogd.c which you can easily increase (as long as you have RAM!) and 
> recompile.

Actually my report was NOT about this limitation. You have it - it is fine.
The problem is that I add some 'zombies' or dead files to my logbook.

BTW is there a tool to check the 'integrity' of a logbook? That all
attachments are in place,  there are no dead files, etc. I perfectly
understand that it is not _highly_ desired or needed, but with the two last
problems (auto-removing of attached files and silent adding a new ones with
20+ attachments) I have doubts that our logbook in a good state. And we just
started to use it. And I am still so excited about it!!

> Actually my report was NOT about this limitation. You have it - it is fine.
> The problem is that I add some 'zombies' or dead files to my logbook.
> 
> BTW is there a tool to check the 'integrity' of a logbook? That all
> attachments are in place,  there are no dead files, etc. I perfectly
> understand that it is not _highly_ desired or needed, but with the two last
> problems (auto-removing of attached files and silent adding a new ones with
> 20+ attachments) I have doubts that our logbook in a good state. And we 
just
> started to use it. And I am still so excited about it!!

Actually my philosophy is not to cure symptoms of a problem, but fix the 
source of it. The reply/attachment bug is fixed, and a warning about 
exceeding the number of attachments will come soon.

About the integrity, there is no problem. As you might know, the xxxxxxa.log 
files are plain text files. The line "Attachments: xxx" contains a simple 
text list of all attachments. In the above case a few files might be missing 
in that line, but they are present in the log directory. So in worst case 
edit the xxxxxxa.log file manually, adding the file names, and maybe restart 
elogd to rebuild the index properly. Otherwise there is no integrity problem.

I've been using elog for several months now, and one thing that's always
seemed odd to me are the things like max number of attachments and max
attachment size are defined right in the source code, and not in the config
file.  It would seem that it would be simple to be able to define stuff like
that in the config file (and have defaults in case they weren't specified),
which would fix a lot of the recompiling problems - just edit the config file
and restart elog.  Not that recompiling elog is difficult, it just seems like
recompiling for such a simple setting is overkill...

Anyway, just curious.  Is there a technical reason this is not done?

Justin

> source of it. The reply/attachment bug is fixed, and a warning about 
> exceeding the number of attachments will come soon.

> I've been using elog for several months now, and one thing that's always
> seemed odd to me are the things like max number of attachments and max
> attachment size are defined right in the source code, and not in the config
> file.  It would seem that it would be simple to be able to define stuff like
> that in the config file (and have defaults in case they weren't specified),
> which would fix a lot of the recompiling problems - just edit the config 
file
> and restart elog.  Not that recompiling elog is difficult, it just seems 
like
> recompiling for such a simple setting is overkill...
> 
> Anyway, just curious.  Is there a technical reason this is not done?

The max attachment size I was able to not only make configurable, but to make 
dynamically. So if there is a very large attachment, the size is dynamically 
extended as long as there is RAM. The max number of attachments is not easy 
to change, since it's used internally as an array size, which has to be 
determined at compile time. Making this dynamically would require a major 
rework, which of course could be done, but it might be that there are more 
urgent requests.

We use ELOG 2.3.5 for Windows with a German language file and have found 


some new problems:




. Certain strings are not translated.


Language error: string "Plese log on by clicking on following link and 


change your password" not found for language "de"


Language error: string "A new password for user <i>"%s"</i> has been sent 


to %s" not found for language "de"




While the first string is obviously written wrong, the second one misses a 


quotation mark.






. If a user uses the new "password forgotten" function, he receives an 


email, but after having clicked the URL in the mail, he gets the following 


error message as simple text, i.e. not formatted by use of the CSS file:




Invalid URL: Notizen/?redir=%3Fcmd%3DChange%20password%26old_pwd%


3DE3ARcjI/&uname=sal&upassword=E3ARcjI/ 


Bitte benutzen Sie die Zurück-Taste Ihres Browsers ...  




Nevertheless the new password was written into the specified password file. 


(This behaviour as far as we know was also with earlier versions of ELOG.)






. If one could not log in through the button "Login", one does not receive 


an error message, but will be pushed simply back to the main page, 


status "Not logged in". (This was as far as we know was also with earlier 


versions of ELOG.)








. If you want to change as an admin the passwords of several users, it 


would be convenient, to get always back to the page, where you may choose 


the next user ... but you will be pushed back to the main page with the 


messages. (This was as far as we know was also with earlier versions of 


ELOG.)








. But the simple change of passwords for users does not always succeed: I 


have changed the password for a user A to "anuvis", the next user B should 


have gotten the same new password, but this time it was not accepted. 


Message "Wrong password". Might it be, that this goes only once because of 


an initialisation problem ? I had to edit the password file manually.








. Opera browser 7.03 simply crashes, when choosing the direct URL to our 


logbook, i.e. http://localhost:8080/logbook2. We have set a general 


password file and a different read password for each of our logbooks.


If we choose http://localhost:8080/logbook1 everything is fine. We get a 


window "Authentication required" and type in simply the read password, no 


user name.


If we choose http://localhost:8080/logbook2 the behaviour is different. We 


see the window "Authentication required" appear, then Opera crashes.


Change of the read passwords did not change this erroneous behaviour. This 


problem was not with version ELOG 2.3.4.




In Internet Explorer 6 all is okay.






. NOWRAP tag in Date column


The date column takes quite a lot of space in the logs overview. As the 
information is only of secondary importance I would prefer date and time 
being wrapped like e.g. the contributors name. Of course, I could help 
myself with a 
 in my language file, but this would force a break also 
on 
the single message view.

> We use ELOG 2.3.5 for Windows with a German language file and have found 
> some new problems:
>
> . Certain strings are not translated.

That has been fixed in meantime.

> . If a user uses the new "password forgotten" function, he receives an 
> email, but after having clicked the URL in the mail, he gets the following 
> error message as simple text, i.e. not formatted by use of the CSS file:
> 
> Invalid URL: Notizen/?redir=%3Fcmd%3DChange%20password%26old_pwd%
> 3DE3ARcjI/&uname=sal&upassword=E3ARcjI/ 

Have you tried the elogd.cfg setting:

[global]
URL = http://your.host/

it might help there.

> . If one could not log in through the button "Login", one does not receive 
> an error message, but will be pushed simply back to the main page, 
> status "Not logged in". (This was as far as we know was also with earlier 
> versions of ELOG.)

You should at least receive a login page. So does this push back occur on a 
wrong username there or how does it happen?

> . If you want to change as an admin the passwords of several users, it 
> would be convenient, to get always back to the page, where you may choose 
> the next user ... but you will be pushed back to the main page with the 
> messages. (This was as far as we know was also with earlier versions of 
> ELOG.)

Agree. Will work on that.

> . But the simple change of passwords for users does not always succeed: I 
> have changed the password for a user A to "anuvis", the next user B should 
> have gotten the same new password, but this time it was not accepted. 
> Message "Wrong password". Might it be, that this goes only once because of 
> an initialisation problem ? I had to edit the password file manually.

Can you reproduce the problem? If so, tell me the exact sequence of thing 
you do and I can try to reproduce it as well, then fix it.

> . Opera browser 7.03 simply crashes, when choosing the direct URL to our 
> logbook, i.e. http://localhost:8080/logbook2. We have set a general 
> password file and a different read password for each of our logbooks.
> If we choose http://localhost:8080/logbook1 everything is fine. We get a 
> window "Authentication required" and type in simply the read password, no 
> user name.

Wow, your browser crashes? Funny, I never had that. So what does the browser 
say?

> If we choose http://localhost:8080/logbook2 the behaviour is different. We 
> see the window "Authentication required" appear, then Opera crashes.
> Change of the read passwords did not change this erroneous behaviour. This 
> problem was not with version ELOG 2.3.4.

I will try to install 7.03 and reproduce this, might take some while...

> . NOWRAP tag in Date column
> The date column takes quite a lot of space in the logs overview. As the 
> information is only of secondary importance I would prefer date and time 
> being wrapped like e.g. the contributors name. Of course, I could help 
> myself with a 
 in my language file, but this would force a break also 
on 
> the single message view.

Something like

Date format = %B %d, %Y

in your configuration file reduces the date string length considerably.

I would like to dump mylog files into comma/tab seperated files. Is there 
an easy way to do it?

I tried to run elconv, but had no success. Always returns an error. 

Thanks,
k. 

> I would like to dump mylog files into comma/tab seperated files. Is there 
> an easy way to do it?
> 
> I tried to run elconv, but had no success. Always returns an error. 
> 
> Thanks,
> k. 

Hi!

Same for me.

Here is the error:

Cannot find any ??????.log file in this directory.

THANX,
mm

> Here is the error:
> 
> Cannot find any ??????.log file in this directory.

`elconv' is just a simple tool to convert pre 2.0 log files to the current
format. (Well, after all these confusions, dropping it from the future
releases won't be surprising -at least for me- ;) You might try some
well-known text-processing tools ie. preferably awk or perl to make the
required conversions. But I think using comma or tab as the delimiter is not
suitable due to the content of logs. If all you want is importing them to
excel/word, you should play with the delimiter options of mentioned programs
before trying a solution.

> `elconv' is just a simple tool to convert pre 2.0 log files to the current
> format. (Well, after all these confusions, dropping it from the future
> releases won't be surprising -at least for me- ;) You might try some
> well-known text-processing tools ie. preferably awk or perl to make the
> required conversions. But I think using comma or tab as the delimiter is 
not
> suitable due to the content of logs. If all you want is importing them to
> excel/word, you should play with the delimiter options of mentioned 
programs
> before trying a solution.

Hi Recai. I have several requests of this kind. "Want to import/export to 
comma separated text" or "XML". So one option is to extend elconv to handle 
all kind of conversions 1.x -> 2.x, 2.x -> CSV, 2.x -> XML. An alternative 
would be to write some awk/perl scripts as you noted. The disadvantage of 
this solution would be that they rely on the installation of awk/perl which 
is not given on windows systems. But nevertheless, if anyone volunteers to 
write a conversion tool, I would be happy to include it in the distribution. 
If not, I can put it into elconv.c, but that could take until June, given my 
current work load.

It seems when I use "reply" with an attachments, the original attachments of
the message are removed.

I use elog-2.3.5

Alexander.

> It seems when I use "reply" with an attachments, the original attachments of
> the message are removed.
> 
> I use elog-2.3.5
> 
> Alexander.

Please see elog:280 . I will releae 2.3.6 with this bugfix somewhen during 
this week.

- Stefan

> > It seems when I use "reply" with an attachments, the original attachments of
> > the message are removed.
> > 
> > I use elog-2.3.5
> > 
> > Alexander.
> 
> Please see elog:280 . I will releae 2.3.6 with this bugfix somewhen during 
> this week.
> 
> - Stefan

Wow! Fast reply!!! Thanks a lot!

I repeat ...
. Opera browser 7.03 simply crashes, when choosing the direct URL to our 
logbook, i.e. http://localhost:8080/logbook2. We have set a general 
password file and a different read password for each of our logbooks.
If we choose http://localhost:8080/logbook1 everything is fine. We get a 
window "Authentication required" and type in simply the read password, no 
user name.
If we choose http://localhost:8080/logbook2 the behaviour is different. We 
see the window "Authentication required" appear, then Opera crashes.
Change of the read passwords did not change this erroneous behaviour. This 
problem was not with version ELOG 2.3.4.

In Internet Explorer 6 all is okay.


 ... and add

The behaviour is different in those browsers even with the start page at 
http://localhost:8080/
Internet Explorer 6 demands a login. But as we have no password we cannot 
login.
Opera 7.03 demands no login and simply offers the list of logbooks to 
choose one.

Is there a way to hide logbooks from all views.

Basically i want to use the move function to move old entries to another 
logbook but only want administrators to be able to see the logbooks in the 
view, everyone will just see the primary ones.

At the min im having to put Archive logbook, everyone is complaining at me 
that there is too many to choose from :)

Any suggestions ?

> Is there a way to hide logbooks from all views.
> 
> Basically i want to use the move function to move old entries to another 
> logbook but only want administrators to be able to see the logbooks in the 
> view, everyone will just see the primary ones.
> 
> At the min im having to put Archive logbook, everyone is complaining at me 
> that there is too many to choose from :)
> 
> Any suggestions ?

What about grouping the archive logbooks into a logbook group? Like:

Group Pubilc = Logook1, Logbook2, ...
Group Archive = Archive1, Archive2, ...

So if a "normal" user is in the public group, it only sees Logoook1, ... and 
a single tab "archive", which is then (I hope) not too much to choose from.

> > Is there a way to hide logbooks from all views.
> > 
> > Basically i want to use the move function to move old entries to another 
> > logbook but only want administrators to be able to see the logbooks in 
the 
> > view, everyone will just see the primary ones.
> > 
> > At the min im having to put Archive logbook, everyone is complaining at 
me 
> > that there is too many to choose from :)
> > 
> > Any suggestions ?
> 
> What about grouping the archive logbooks into a logbook group? Like:
> 
> Group Pubilc = Logook1, Logbook2, ...
> Group Archive = Archive1, Archive2, ...
> 
> So if a "normal" user is in the public group, it only sees Logoook1, ... 
and 
> a single tab "archive", which is then (I hope) not too much to choose from.


I tried that but on the summary screen it displays a list of all the logbook 
regardless of group, also im not using public groups im using a seperate 
password file.

> I tried that but on the summary screen it displays a list of all the 
logbook 
> regardless of group, also im not using public groups im using a seperate 
> password file.

Ah, you mean by "summary screen" the initial logbook selection screen where 
each logbook is displayed in one line. For that case, I just added a 
flag "Hide from selection". If set to "1", this logbook is not dispalyed 
among the list of logbooks. Is this what you want? New version under CVS.

> > I tried that but on the summary screen it displays a list of all the 
> logbook 
> > regardless of group, also im not using public groups im using a seperate 
> > password file.
> 
> Ah, you mean by "summary screen" the initial logbook selection screen where 
> each logbook is displayed in one line. For that case, I just added a 
> flag "Hide from selection". If set to "1", this logbook is not dispalyed 
> among the list of logbooks. Is this what you want? New version under CVS.

Yes thats wicked perfect, now im prob being thick but is there a way to hide 
logbook tabs in the same way, as i dont really want to use groups as the 
people that use the system arent really techie and the titles will confuse 
them :)

Im trying to make it idiot proof for them 

Cheers

> Yes thats wicked perfect, now im prob being thick but is there a way to 
hide 
> logbook tabs in the same way, as i dont really want to use groups as the 
> people that use the system arent really techie and the titles will confuse 
> them :)

Well, I changed the flag from "hide from selection = 1" to "hidden = 1", 
which hides it now also from the logbook selection tabs on the top row. But 
this means that the only way to access the hidden logbooks is by entering 
their URL directly (or from a bookmark). I'm not sure how useful this is...

New version under CVS.

> > Yes thats wicked perfect, now im prob being thick but is there a way to 
> hide 
> > logbook tabs in the same way, as i dont really want to use groups as the 
> > people that use the system arent really techie and the titles will 
confuse 
> > them :)
> 
> Well, I changed the flag from "hide from selection = 1" to "hidden = 1", 
> which hides it now also from the logbook selection tabs on the top row. But 
> this means that the only way to access the hidden logbooks is by entering 
> their URL directly (or from a bookmark). I'm not sure how useful this is...
> 
> New version under CVS.

Thats perfect, administrator such as myself can access those books directly 
from the URL, and can be used as an archive logbook running in sync with the 
live one, so hold records such as completed tickets in a request system once 
completed can be moved to the archive logbook.

Cheers fella  that is gonna help me a great deal.