What should be table structure to maintain login logout logs?

Question

I have loginlog table as following

Field       Type
login_id    int(10)     NOT NULL
platform    varchar(50) NOT NULL
browser     varchar(50) NOT NULL
ipaddress   varchar(50) NOT NULL
last_login  datetime    NULL
last_logout datetime    NULL

But on this structure I am confuse that I can add login time but its hard to update it for logout time. I have not added primary key because logs are frequent and primarykey will soon reach it max value. What should be the best way? Please help.

Answer 1

Having a single row with both login and logout like that is just asking for trouble, because it assumes that every login has a corresponding logout, which is just not the case. Sometimes they will login on a public computer and never log out, sometimes they will open an anonymous window and login.

Instead, I would cut it down to just a type:

• login_id
• platform
• browser
• ip_address
• date
• type (login / logout)