PHP Chat Room Implementation with Session Access Management

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PHP Chat Room Implementation with Session Access
Management

• Jonathan Xavier Ozovek
• Renée Puchalski

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Presentation Outline

• Introduction
• Explanation What is a Chat Room?
• Original Chat Script
• How does this Chat Room Work?
• New Features
• The Result
• Conclusion

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Introduction

• The use of the computer lead to multiple
  discoveries of new ways for people to have
  discussions with one another including news
  groups, forums, mailing lists, chat clients, and
  video conferencing.
• Of these discoveries , there is only one that
  provides a simple way for two or more people to
  communicate in real time without the use of
  external devices attached to your computer
• the chat room.

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What is a Chat Room?

• A chat room is a web site, part of a web site, or
  part of an online service such as America Online,
  that provides a venue for communities of users
  with a common interest to communicate in real
  time.

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What is a Chat Room? (contd)

• At the log in screen, chat room users choose a
  user name and enter his/her password.
• Chat users are alerted when another person enters
  the chat room.
• To chat, users type a message into a text box.
  The message is almost immediately visible in the
  larger communal message area and other users
  respond.
• Text formatting, pretty color schemes, and
  different icons are chosen by clicking on the
  corresponding buttons below the text box.

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Original Chat Script

• Original chat room had no session management,
  user authentication, or associated screen names.
• There was an input box and the user would simply
  type in who they wanted to appear as in the chat.

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How does this Chat Script Work?

• Text that is entered into the text box is saved
  to a log file on the UNIX server.
• Every 3-7 seconds, the saved text from the log
  file is retrieved and printed to the screen in
  the shared message area.
• Chat room is comprised of many PHP components.

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(No Transcript)
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Main.php file
Insert.php file
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How does this Chat Script Work? (contd)

• Three main components
• Set.php file
• Main.php file
• Insert.php file

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New Features

• PHP Session Management
• Associated Screen Names with Valid Users

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Project Modification Diagram
Start
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PHP Session Management

• Added session management variables to
  authentication and index pages.
• One variable for the session ID and another for
  the logon name a user selected.
• When converting our .php files to .cgi,
  modifications were required to get the session
  management to work properly. This involved
  adding a session_save_path() statement prior to
  declaring _at_session_start()

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Additions/Modifications to complete project

• Created a password encryption script
• Created a password validation script
• Created a screen name select box creation script
• For these, two text files were required.
• Password text file
• Screen Name text file

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Encryption Script

• Encrypts a users password and write that and his
  or her name to a saved password file.
• File has protections of chmod 700 on my account
  when not in use, so there can be no added
  user/password combinations without my
  authorization.

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Log On Script

• Takes a users name and password as input,
  encrypt their password input and test it against
  the password file to see if it is a valid user.
• After integration, changed this file to a .cgi
  extension so the password text file could only be
  accessible to the owner.

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Screen Name Script

• Loads the associated screen names with a valid
  users login name. This will also be
  accomplished through storage in a text file, and
  the script will load a drop down menu containing
  the screen names.
• After integration, changed this file to a .cgi
  extension as well. This is so the associated
  screen name text file could only be accessible to
  the owner.

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The Result

• Enter Chat Room
• Password Encryption Script
• Password Validation Script
• Screen Name Select Box Creation Script
• Example password text file
• Example screen name text file

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Conclusion

• Although, chat rooms seem to have few advantages
  over news groups, listservs, or mailing lists,
  there is one exception. Discussions on
  complicated concepts, when conducted in
  asynchronous mode, can take many days, or even
  weeks, to complete. In a chat room, the same
  discussion may be completed in a much shorter
  time. This can be very important in teaching
  math, science, and technology over the internet
  today.

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• ANY QUESTIONS?