[Flask] User specific log files

[Kevin Stone]

I have done some research and experimenting. There is a whole lot you can do with the python logging framework that I am unfamiliar with. I think I found something that will work for us, although maybe it's not the best solution.


I was able to create a filehandler on user login that I attach a filter to. This filter tells the handler to only work when that user is logged into the session. Here is the filter code.



class UserLoggingFilter(logging.Filter):

    """

    Create a filter to only log the current user

        to its handler

    """



    def __init__(self, user):

        self.user = user



    def filter(self, record):

        if 'user' in session and session['user'] == self.user:

            return True

        return False



And here is more or less what the handler code is like.



file_handler = FileHandler(user_log_file)

file_handler.addFilter(UserLoggingFilter(user))

app.logger.addHandler(file_handler)

​


This seems to work just great. I appreciate the help, and welcome any alternative suggestions, but at least I have one way that works.


-Kevin


________________________________
From: Kevin Stone
Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 10:21 AM
To: Kelvin M; Robert Grant
Cc: flask at python.org
Subject: Re: [Flask] User specific log files


We have a simple internal application for editing our database. There are about 20-30 users. We primarily want to see the user actions and SQL generated by the app, sometimes in realtime. ​

​

When a user logs in and creates a session, I would like to be able to append a filehandler for that user to the main app logger. What I can't grasp in my head is that the app logger is global, but I only want this filehandler to act on that user's session. That's why when I tried it it logged all user actions to every log file.


________________________________
From: Kelvin M <kelvin.malyar at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 10:12 AM
To: Robert Grant
Cc: Kevin Stone; flask at python.org
Subject: Re: [Flask] User specific log files

Hi Kevin,

What are you trying to accomplish with multiple log files?  In the past, the approach that I/we've taken is to just use a log aggregator.  Either, Splunk or ELK (ElasticSearch, LogStash, Kibana).

With both, you index all log messages and can then create reports or views for users independently.

I know that ELK is really easy to set up and free.

Would something like that work for you?

Regards,
Kelvin

On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 5:26 PM, Robert Grant <robertlagrant at gmail.com<mailto:robertlagrant at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Kevin

Just a couple of quick questions:

1) Do you have enough users to just log to a database and record a username with each log line? Just a suggestion to consider.
2) Can you post a minimal, verifiable and complete example of your first attempt to give people something solid to critique?

Thanks


Rob

On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 8:55 PM, Kevin Stone <Kevin.Stone at jax.org<mailto:Kevin.Stone at jax.org>> wrote:

​Hi,


I am not the most familiar with the python logging framework, and I think I need some help on developing an approach for creating user specific log files in Flask. It would be even better if someone has already done this before and could share their pattern.



The problem I want to solve is this:

1) user1 and user2 both log in to the app

2) user1's activity is logged in "user1.log". user2's activity is logged in "user2.log".

3) No other user's activity should appear in that user's log file.



Ideally, I would like to tap into existing loggers that I have (e.g. the app logger and the SQLAlchemy logger), but I don't know if that is possible. My first naive attempt simply registers additional handlers at login time to the app.logger. This created the appropriate log files, but they had all activity from all users writing to them.



Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Kevin

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