Logging and Activity Tracking

This document covers Maho's logging and activity tracking systems, which include system-level file logging, encrypted administrator audit trails, and database-driven activity tracking.

Purpose and Scope

Maho provides multiple logging systems serving different purposes:

• System Logging (Mage::log()): File-based application logging for errors, exceptions, and debugging using Monolog levels.
• Admin Activity Logging (Maho_AdminActivityLog): Database-based encrypted audit trail tracking all administrator actions, including logins, configuration changes, and entity modifications.
• Visitor Activity Logs (Mage_Log): Database tables tracking customer visits and URL accesses.
• Cron Status Tracking: Monitoring of background job execution and history cleanup.
• Security Captcha Tracking: Monitoring and verification of CAPTCHA challenges for both frontend and admin areas.

Sources: app/Mage.php23-30 app/code/core/Mage/Log/Model/Visitor.php50-55 app/code/core/Maho/Captcha/Model/Observer.php11-20

System Architecture Overview

High-Level Logging Flow

Diagram: Logging System Architecture - Shows the three logging systems: file-based system logging, encrypted admin activity tracking via observers, and visitor activity logging to database tables.

Sources: app/code/core/Mage/Log/Model/Visitor.php217-219 app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Config.php43

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System Logging

System logging provides file-based application logging for errors, exceptions, and debugging using Monolog\Level.

System Logging Architecture

Sources: app/Mage.php23-30 app/Mage.php2296-2310

Log Levels

Maho utilizes Monolog\Level for its logging constants, ensuring compatibility with modern PHP logging standards.

Constant	Level	Value (Monolog)
Mage::LOG_EMERGENCY	Emergency	Level::Emergency
Mage::LOG_ALERT	Alert	Level::Alert
Mage::LOG_CRITICAL	Critical	Level::Critical
Mage::LOG_ERROR	Error	Level::Error
Mage::LOG_WARNING	Warning	Level::Warning
Mage::LOG_NOTICE	Notice	Level::Notice
Mage::LOG_INFO	Info	Level::Info
Mage::LOG_DEBUG	Debug	Level::Debug

Sources: app/Mage.php23-30

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Admin Activity Logging

The Maho_AdminActivityLog module provides an encrypted audit trail of all administrator actions, ensuring that sensitive configuration changes or data modifications are tracked securely.

Data Flow and Encryption

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Visitor Activity Tracking

The Mage_Log module tracks frontend visitor behavior.

Visitor Data Capture

The Mage_Log_Model_Visitor class initializes visitor data from server variables:

• Request Info: Captures remote_addr, http_user_agent, request_uri, and http_referer app/code/core/Mage/Log/Model/Visitor.php131-147
• URL Handling: The getUrl() method resolves the original path info (before URL rewrites) to provide meaningful analytics app/code/core/Mage/Log/Model/Visitor.php169-185
• Exclusions: Specific User Agents can be ignored via configuration at global/ignore_user_agents app/code/core/Mage/Log/Model/Visitor.php103-113

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Cron and Background Tracking

Maho tracks the execution status of background tasks to ensure system health.

Cron Status Monitoring

The Mage_Cron_Model_Observer monitors the execution of the cron subsystem:

• Status Check: The checkCronStatus method warns administrators if no jobs have been executed within the last hour (CRON_NOT_RUNNING_THRESHOLD) app/code/core/Mage/Cron/Model/Observer.php36-68 This check is performed via the controller_action_predispatch event in the adminhtml area app/code/core/Mage/Cron/Model/Observer.php35
• History Management: The cleanup method prunes old cron job records from the cron_schedule table based on lifetimes configured in system/cron/history_success_lifetime and system/cron/history_failure_lifetime app/code/core/Mage/Cron/Model/Observer.php24-26

CLI Cron Management

The maho CLI provides commands to inspect and run cron jobs:

• cron:list: Lists all configured jobs, their model/method callbacks, and schedules lib/MahoCLI/Commands/CronList.php22-27
• cron:run: Executes a specific job or a group (default/always) lib/MahoCLI/Commands/CronRun.php24-27
• cron:history: Displays the recent execution history from the database.

Sources: app/code/core/Mage/Cron/Model/Observer.php13-28 lib/MahoCLI/Commands/CronRun.php41-58 lib/MahoCLI/Commands/CronList.php31-46

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Security Activity Tracking

The Maho_Captcha module tracks and verifies security challenges to prevent automated attacks.

Captcha Verification Flow

The system utilizes observers to intercept requests before dispatch:

• Frontend Verification: verify app/code/core/Maho/Captcha/Model/Observer.php20-37 monitors high-risk actions like checkout, registration, and contact form submissions.
• Admin Verification: verifyAdmin app/code/core/Maho/Captcha/Model/Observer.php41-61 protects admin login and password recovery by observing admin_user_authenticate_before app/code/core/Maho/Captcha/Model/Observer.php39
• Failure Handling: Failed verifications trigger failedVerification app/code/core/Maho/Captcha/Model/Observer.php63-85 which stops the request dispatch and redirects the user with an error message.

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Log Management and Cleanup

Database Log Cleanup

Maho provides mechanisms to prune historical data from tables like log_visitor and log_customer to prevent database bloat. This is handled via the cron system and CLI utilities.

Feature	Configuration Path / Command	Purpose
Visitor Log Cleanup	system/log/clean_after_day	Prunes visitor logs older than X days.
Cron Cleanup	system/cron/history_cleanup_every	Frequency of cron schedule pruning.
CLI Status	maho log:status	Shows row counts and data sizes for all log tables lib/MahoCLI/Commands/LogStatus.php22-26
CLI Pruning	maho log:clean	Manual trigger for database log pruning lib/MahoCLI/Commands/LogClean.php1-10

Monitored Tables in log:status

The following tables are tracked for size and row count:

• log_customer, log_visitor, log_visitor_info lib/MahoCLI/Commands/LogStatus.php44-46
• log_url, log_url_info, log_quote lib/MahoCLI/Commands/LogStatus.php47-49
• report_viewed_product_index, report_compared_product_index, report_event lib/MahoCLI/Commands/LogStatus.php50-52
• catalog_compare_item lib/MahoCLI/Commands/LogStatus.php53

Sources: app/code/core/Mage/Cron/Model/Observer.php21-26 lib/MahoCLI/Commands/LogStatus.php43-54 maho62-63