Perl spies on a sniffer
Always an Event
In contrast, the event
database table stores the timeline for the events snapped up by the Zeitgeist daemon. The SQL query in Figure 5 retrieves a few recent sample records of events along with their matching timestamps. Numeric indexes are used to reference other tables, for example, uri
, in which the index is mapped to a text entry.
The timestamp format used by Zeitgeist in the timestamp
column, however, is not one that is directly supported by SQLite; instead, it gives you the Unix time since 1970 in seconds, followed by three more digits that give you thousandths of seconds.
Listing 2 extracts the desktop actions for the last 12 hours from the event
table. It needs to convert the Zeitgeist date in the SQL command it sends as follows
Listing 2
apps-recent
date(substr(timestamp,1,10),'unixepoch')
into SQLite format. With this in place, it can easily compare the recorded timestamps with the time window defined in the SQLite dialect in the form of a handy date('now', '-12 hours')
expression.
The while
loop as of line 22 processes all result records and accumulates the application URLs in the %apps
hash. The for
loop as of line 28 then groups the entries in descending order by counter status and outputs the results.
Figure 6 shows the output from Listing 2; it seems that an xterm window was opened 18 times in the period under review, and that I created a total of six screenshots.
Monitoring Time Clock
How much work did the user put in during the past 24 hours? Did the user just click around on the desktop? Listing 3 discovers such things by searching through the event
activity table for the previous day's entries and incrementing a counter for each hour by one if a desktop event occurred in the time slot.
Listing 3
last-24-hours
Burning the Midnight Oil
The %activity
hash in line 28 increments by one if an event occurs within a specific hour. Finally, the while
loop in lines 36-41 only needs to count up hour by hour from the previous day's date to the present and output the events using printf
.
The output in Figure 7 confirms that the user only worked between 7pm and 11pm – true to the motto that "lazy people get busy at night." Or, maybe it was because the not-so-lazy user was working hard all day at the office and then sat down at their home computer in the evening to compose an article for Linux Pro Magazine?
Infos
- Zeitgeist project on Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/zeitgeist
- Listings for this article: ftp://ftp.linux-magazine.com/pub/listings/magazine/176 IE:
« Previous 1 2
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Canonical Bumps LTS Support to 12 years
If you're worried that your Ubuntu LTS release won't be supported long enough to last, Canonical has a surprise for you in the form of 12 years of security coverage.
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
-
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.
-
ZorinOS 17.1 Released, Includes Improved Windows App Support
If you need or desire to run Windows applications on Linux, there's one distribution intent on making that easier for you and its new release further improves that feature.
-
Linux Market Share Surpasses 4% for the First Time
Look out Windows and macOS, Linux is on the rise and has even topped ChromeOS to become the fourth most widely used OS around the globe.
-
KDE’s Plasma 6 Officially Available
KDE’s Plasma 6.0 "Megarelease" has happened, and it's brimming with new features, polish, and performance.
-
Latest Version of Tails Unleashed
Tails 6.0 is based on Debian 12 and includes GNOME 43.
-
KDE Announces New Slimbook V with Plenty of Power and KDE’s Plasma 6
If you're a fan of KDE Plasma, you'll be thrilled to hear they've announced a new Slimbook with an AMD CPU and the latest version of KDE Plasma desktop.
-
Monthly Sponsorship Includes Early Access to elementary OS 8
If you want to get a glimpse of what's in the pipeline for elementary OS 8, just set up a monthly sponsorship to help fund its continued existence.