the blog

Introducing django-peavy

Continuing my apparent obsession with logging, I've just released django-peavy. It's a collection of logging support code for capturing your Django application logging to a database, and a (really) basic user interface for reviewing it. Notable features include:

• Middleware to tag each request with a unique ID.
• Logging filters to capture request metadata like user, remote IP, and headers.
• Logging handlers for:
  • Capturing exception information, including a copy of the Django server error page, in a database.
  • Sending error notifications to admins without revealing sensitive information like the contents of request.POST.
• A database router for sending log records to a separate database (though there are problems with South migrations you'll need to work around to do so).
• A simple user interface for browsing log records in the database.

Better spam defense for Django comments

I've finally found the time to package up an improved version of my comment validation. In addition to the original's simple link count, this version checks if the commenter's IP has been banned or has submitted questionable (non-public) comments in the past, and compares the comment to a series of phrase blacklists. It also includes batch tools in the comments administration pages, to reduce the time you spend banning IPs or deleting spam.

Enhancing Django comments admin with django-batchadmin

So, I'm making headway against comment spam, but still accumulating a bunch of comments that are suspicious enough to mark for review, but not bad enough to reject out of hand. The find, delete, confirm delete cycle in the admin interface is tiresome. Enter django-batchadmin.