in reply to keep a user signed in

Just so I understand this: you want help to write a script so that you can "lock" a slot on a busy site for, possibly many, hours until you can personally get to it, meanwhile denying access to other people who may be trying to access the site too? Why don't you give us the URL so that we can all write robots and provide a complete denial of service attack on the site?

We could turn it into a competition to see who can write the robot most effective at blocking the site. Would you like to create the rules and post them here? Maybe we could judge it by earning one XP-- for each successful attack with the largest decrease in XP at the end of some specified time being the winner (or do I mean loser)?

Perl is Huffman encoded by design.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: keep a user signed in
by Tanktalus (Canon) on Nov 13, 2005 at 22:31 UTC

    My guess is that, no, that's not quite what the OP wants to do. The OP's question seems to me to be one of keeping a login valid - usually this doesn't prevent anyone else from logging in. For example, just because I forget to close the fullpage CB window on perlmonks doesn't mean that you can't log in. But I will get continually updated cookies which keeps me from being logged out (if there was such a timeout scheme available).

    The OP wants some way of doing that on a site that doesn't have an auto-refresh like the fullpage CB here, which means that the browser can't do it automatically (well, not easily - I'm sure that with some frames and javascript you may be able to pull it off).

    What was mentioned in the CB at one point is the idea of an HTTP proxy. I don't even recall who mentioned it. Rather than going to the site, you go to the proxy. The proxy would be written with WWW::Mechanize for the continuous pinging of the server, and HTTP::Proxy for proxying (probably - maybe HTTP::Daemon, not sure), and something for cookie support. When the browser hits the proxy, the proxy returns back the cookie with the data.

    Doesn't really sound like a lot of fun, and I'm just not sure why the OP can't just login at night - is the ability to log in only available while you're at work?

[reply]
      OP: ... and it's really hard to log into during the day. It would be easier to have a script on my web site log in and keep the account active until I can come back during the night ... .

      That strongly implies to me that it is a site which allows a limited number of logins (presumably to avoid clobbering the server) - hence the strong reaction. I guess OP could reply and tell us I am wrong, in which case I will have earned any -- I get. :)

      If OP's story is really good I'll even appologise, ++ the reply and point OP at a suitable module.

      Perl is Huffman encoded by design.
[reply]
        It's not to log into a site that has limited log ins, it's to log in and keep my account fresh and active. The web site appears to have more than one server and depending on the hour of the day, the server that executes logins is very slow and can often times timeout a number of times before it'll let you through.

        Once you're logged in, everything is fine. So if my account was already logged in, I'd never have to worry about not being able to login again.

[reply]
Re^2: keep a user signed in
by coldfingertips (Pilgrim) on Nov 13, 2005 at 20:08 UTC
    Had to downvote. You can't approve a SOPW and attack it the way you did. If you thought the OP was using it for that purpose, it should have been considered instead of approved.

    You're pretty much saying it's okay but it's not.

    Now I am indifferent about this but then again, I didn't approve and then attack.

    To get back on topic and to answer the question. It is possible and really not that hard to do. You should first check the time out period and write your bot NICELY so it only goes active when it needs to and not any more.

[reply]

      I approved it because it was an Anonymous Monk post and the original poster (assuming that he is not a monk in hiding) would otherwise not see see the original post (or indeed see any replies that may be made) and may be tempted to post again.

      In general beating on a limited resource in this fashion is a Bad ThingTM. Note that any bot in this case is bad because it is keeping a channel locked, but unused, and is therefore denying other users access so that OP can come along, without regard to anyone else, at his leisure and use the limited resource. The pathalogical case comes when all the "users" are bots and no-one actually uses the site. Do you want to encourage that?

      Perl is Huffman encoded by design.
[reply]
      I think that approving a post to PM and agree its contents are two quite different and somehow unrelated things.

      The OP was quite in-topic and not offensive. This is something that IMHO qualifies a node for approval in the PM sense - freedom to speak. OTOH, I could be strongly against what the OP contains, and I like to think that there's space to express one's thoughts. Again, freedom to speak.

      IMHO, that "competition" stuff was a bit exagerated independently on who approved the OP - but this is only my humble opionion.

      Flavio
      perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<<ti.xittelop@oivalf

      Don't fool yourself.
[reply]
      Approving is about publicity, not agreement.
[reply]

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