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| ==Why is Logging an important topic?==
| | See [[Logging 2]] |
| * Not much of new Moodle development is based on measured data. We need to
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| ** Prove there is a problem
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| ** Prove that a given change is an improvement.
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| *Data comes from logging
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| *Better data would allow researchers to study what happens in online teaching.
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| *Better data would give admins more feedback on how to run their site (both technically and process)
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| *Better data would give teachers better feedback to improve their teaching process.
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| *Better data would give students better feedback to improve the learning process.
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| *Note we can't predict all the analysis
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| ==Problems==
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| * Logging is added adhoc by developers, has spotty coverage. No admin logging!
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| * Log tables are joined in many popular queries and are slow.
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| * No archiving, so have to delete old logs
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| * Deletion is wholesale, no control.
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| * No synchronization with server logs to help debugging performance issues
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| * No storage of traces when there are problems, so we can debug Moodle issues
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| ==Parts of Moodle that aren’t being logged, that should have logs==
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| * Errors and warnings
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| ** People report errors, but cannot duplicate it.
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| ** Logging history with stack trace would be very useful
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| ** Also dump session variables and all other data that can be useful for debugging
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| * Admin activities
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| * Micro activities in a page (more than one per load)
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| * AJAX calls (eg on course page)
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| * Should be careful about logging confidential information (e.g. do not log any POST data)
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| * Shouldn’t delete logs when course is deleted
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| * All events should all be logged
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| ** Add more events (they are cheap and very useful)
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| ** Need more standardisation of event data for all triggered events
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| ** Add a catch-all handler that pushes events to the logging system
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| * --> Action logging improvements META - MDL-28443
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| ==Users of log table at the moment==
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| A lot of the time-critical uses of the log table can be moved to new tables specifically for this purpose. It will speed things up a lot.
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| * recent activity (block, myMoodle) EVENTS -> NEW TABLE
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| * conditional access EVENTS -> NEW TABLE
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| * failed logins EVENTS -> NEW TABLE
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| * files via clamav EVENTS -> NEW TABLE
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| Other things can can continue to query the main logs:
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| * course activity report, participation report, user outline report
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| * stats
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| * cron
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| * automated backup locking/heartbeats (probably)
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| * auth/mnet/auth.php
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| * backup/restore (target logs and own logging)
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| * grade history (currently separate log)
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| And some future things that will need the full log:
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| * Engagement reporting
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| ==Basic approach==
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| We can't actually predict all the use cases so we must think generically and plan for worst cases.
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| * Make logging calls as cheap as possible
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| * Use MUC-like plug-ins to determine where to put logs permanently (NoSQL, SAS, file...). Default will be to the current log table.
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| * Log everything we possibly can think of.
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| * Define log level settings (on each logging call) so different sites can choose what they want logged and so control size, speed etc
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| * add_to_log retained for backward compatibility, make it a wrapper for new logger function.
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| * provide hooks to expose logs everywhere. For example, each page should have a link that shows logs and stats for that page.
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| ===Moodle -> Logs ===
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| * MUC-like plugins to interface between our logging calls and log backends
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| ** File
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| ** logsstash
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| ** fluentd
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| ** memcached?
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| ** http://logging.apache.org/log4php/ ?
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| ===Logs -> Moodle===
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| * Each plugin implements some methods to query and extract logs back to Moodle
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| * Do we auto-sync anything back to Moodle tables for convenience?
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| ==See also==
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| Examples of data-based learning technology development:
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| * http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00928.x/abstract
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| * http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131510000461 -> qtype_pmatch
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| * http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02680513.2011.567754
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| * http://oro.open.ac.uk/24619/
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