[ic] IPs that change with every access

Carl Bailey carl at triangleresearch.com
Sat Jun 23 18:51:38 EDT 2007


Kevin Walsh <kevin at cursor.biz> wrote:
> Grant <emailgrant at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I was looking at [env HTTP_COOKIE] at it looks like my MV_SESSION_ID
>> cookie is composed of my session ID and my IP address.  I've been
>> studying my logs a lot lately, and there are a fair amount of accesses
>> made by IP addresses that change with every access, usually just the
>> end portion of the IP address.  Most of these accesses are clearly
>> robots, but some of them are clearly not.  Is IC able to keep track of
>> a user's session properly when their IP changes with each access?
>>
> Ordinary users should not change their IP address with every request.
> Spiders might do this, but they should be recognised by the Robot*
> directives.
>
> Users who use a proxy cluster might present themselves from a different
> IP address every now and again.  Similarly, Also, if a user's ISP has a
> weird DHCP setup then it might give the user a new IP address, rather
> than renew the existing lease, but you shouldn't see that very often
> in a normal browsing session.

Yet we see this all the time, primarily from users of AOL, who 
presumably all utilize a proxy cluster.  That makes it a far more 
common occurrence indeed, at least here in the states ;)

That said, without changing the IC configuration, I have tested this 
situation by modifying the cookie in my browser, so that the IP address 
part no longer matches my actual IP address.  As long as the session ID 
part is constant Interchange does not seem to mind, and the session 
behaves normally, all the way through checkout.	

Carl



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