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Error code / counter incrementor

Simple PHP script that increments a counter when accessed, and the displays the current count.

Can also be used programmatically when used as a project's composer dependency.

Installation

• Check out in a folder of your choice in the document root of your webserver
• Rename config-local.dist.php to config-local.php
• Ensure that the storage folder is writable by the script
• Edit the required settings in the file, set up the counters you wish to use (see Configuration)

Configuration

Password

The counter is password protected to avoid someone hogging the server in a DOS attack, since it causes a write operation on the hard drive, and can thus create a heavy system load in such a context.

Even if this seems like a trivial operation, take care to choose a good password.

The counters list

The counters array in config-local.php is very simple. Let's say you have two applications for which you want to maintain error code counters, called "Mistral" and "Tramontane" (Wind names). The counters list would look like this:

Note: There is no limitation on the characters used in the names - you can safely use UTF8 and special characters if you wish.

Update delay

See Security > Minimum update delays.

Quick start

To start checking counter values, point your browser to where the script is located, and use the following GET parameters:

• View a counter: /path/?pw=****&counter=(name)
• Increment a counter: /path/?pw=****&counter=(name)&increment=yes

Both will display the current value of the selected counter.

Security

Minimum update delays

To mitigate DOS attacks or avoid spamming the counters, an update delay is enforced between incrementing counters. By default, it is only possible to increment a counter every 10 seconds.

The absolute minimum is enforced at 1 second.

Note: The delay works separately for each counter, and is only used when incrementing.

HTTPS recommended

Since the counter uses a password, it is a bad idea to use it over HTTP, as it is relatively easy to intercept the password in the requests. Use a webserver with an SSL certificate, and serve the script using an HTTPS connection.

Error handling

The script will send an HTTP status code when something goes wrong, with a descriptive status text.

Possible errors:

• 401 Wrong or no password
• 400 No counter name specified
• 404 Specified counter does not exist
• 403 Minimum update delay not respected
• 500 Counter data cannot be saved/loaded

Accessing counters programmatically

The Counters class can be used independently of serving the counters via HTTP requests. This means that you can simply require this package as a dependency in your project, and use the Counters class there.

Getting a counter value

Incrementing a counter

Fetching available counters