Models should be blissfully unaware that they are attached to a web app. For example, if you use your models from the console, or a rake task, there is no web app, so if your models assume that a controller exists you're asking for trouble.
In this case, however, you can simply feed the :last_known_up and :last_known_user_agent to your model this way:
class UserController def some_action @user = User.find(params[:id]) @user.update_metadata(:last_known_up => request.remote_ip, :last_known_user_agent => request.user_agent) end end
class User def update_metadata(options = {}) options.reverse_merge!(:last_login_at => Time.now) self.update_attributes(options) end end
Brent
