On a recent project I was working on, I was building an intranet site for a corporation and the client wanted to be able to check when each user logged in, to see whether they were logging in to the site to check the announcments.
I figured there would be a plugin for the job and naturally, there was. I came across Simple Login Log.
As the name might suggest, there’s not much to the plugin, but it provides a lot of useful information. Once the plugin is installed, it will keep a record every time someone logs in to the site. It records their:
User ID
Username
User role
Name
Date and time of login
IP address
Login result
and some extra information such as the destination and user agent.
The data is easily sorted by time, or IP address and you can filter the data by a particular user or even user role.
Dave Clements has been building websites for close to a decade and in 2010, he formalised that by starting his own company, The UK Edge. He now works on a variety of web projects, from simple tasks like installing a new WordPress site, to consulting on problems, or redesigning his clients' sites. He also runs Do It With WordPress, a site dedicated to providing free tutorials on WordPress.
When he's not building your new website, you can find Dave eating Wheat Thins, spending time with friends and family, watching Indie films, fostering kittens from the local Humane Society, listening to some dubstep, dance and electronic rock, and exploring the world.
There are all kinds of overblown solutions for security – I like this plugin, simple and effective. At least if you have a site with multiple accounts you can keep track of who logs in when. Great idea!
This looks like a fairly decent plugin to help keep an eye on user activity. I wouldn’t think it would use that much database space or resources. Hopefully there is a way to purge or remove records after a certain time frame or number of days so the database doesn’t get cluttered eventually. I am sure there are quite a few people that would be interested in additional logging for their website.
It’s doesn’t have that function inherently, and I don’t know if it only retains records for so long, but if it came down to it, you can always delete the old rows from the table pretty quickly (not ideal I realise).
Thanks for confirming that. I wouldn’t have a problem with removing the records from the database. I just thought if it had the feature built into the plugin it would save a little time. I’ll definitely keep this one in mind.
As the name might suggest, there’s not much to the plugin, but it provides a lot of useful information. Once the plugin is installed, it will keep a record every time someone logs in to the site. It records their:
April 16, 2012 at 10:00 am
There are all kinds of overblown solutions for security – I like this plugin, simple and effective. At least if you have a site with multiple accounts you can keep track of who logs in when. Great idea!
April 28, 2012 at 9:34 pm
This looks like a fairly decent plugin to help keep an eye on user activity. I wouldn’t think it would use that much database space or resources. Hopefully there is a way to purge or remove records after a certain time frame or number of days so the database doesn’t get cluttered eventually. I am sure there are quite a few people that would be interested in additional logging for their website.
April 30, 2012 at 1:00 pm
It’s doesn’t have that function inherently, and I don’t know if it only retains records for so long, but if it came down to it, you can always delete the old rows from the table pretty quickly (not ideal I realise).
May 3, 2012 at 2:57 am
Thanks for confirming that. I wouldn’t have a problem with removing the records from the database. I just thought if it had the feature built into the plugin it would save a little time. I’ll definitely keep this one in mind.
May 11, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Curious whether this plugin logs failed attempts to log in. I had my Admin locked out so many times, I got rid of that “user” account!
May 14, 2012 at 8:29 am
Indeed it does. Any time someone TRIES to log in, it’s recorded, whether they were successful or not.