 
mod_cookies: user tracking module

This Apache module is designed to track users paths through a site.
It uses the client-side state ("Cookie") protocol developed by Netscape.
It is known to work on Netscape browsers, Microsoft Internet 
Explorer and others currently being developed.
Each time a page is requested we look to see if the browser is sending
us a Cookie: header that we previously generated.

If we don't find one then the user hasn't been to this site since
starting their browser or their browser doesn't support cookies.  So
we generate a unique Cookie for the transaction and send it back to
the browser (via a "Set-Cookie" header)
Future requests from the same browser should keep the same Cookie line.

The cookie and request are logged to a file.  Use the directive
"CookieLog somefilename" in one of the config files to enable the Cookie
module.  By matching up all the requests with the same cookie you can
work out exactly what path a user took through your site.

Notes:
1.  This code doesn't log the initial transaction (the one that created
    the cookie to start with).  If it did then the cookie log file would
    be bigger than a normal access log.
2.  This module has been designed to not interfere with other Cookies
    your site may be using; just avoid sending out cookies with
    the name "Apache=" or things will get confused.
3.  If you want you can modify the Set-Cookie line so that the Cookie
    never expires.  You would then get the same Cookie each time the
    user revisits your site.

Mark Cox, mark ukweb.com, http://www.ukweb.com/~mark/, 6 July 95
 
