All About Webstats Logs

‎16-09-2014

1. What are Webstats Log files?

The website version of webstats has been designed to provide information that is useful to most Plusnet members. There might be information that is not reported on the webstats pages.
The webstats log files contain all the collected information, and can be used along with the webilizer program to create customised reports. Unfortunately we can't provide any telephone support for the use of webstats log files.
As well as the webstats available on the website, you can also view the raw 'log files' that are recorded for your website. The logs allow you to obtain additional statistics not available on the portal. Webstats log files are not available by default, you must raise a query usingThe Help Assistant requesting that your log files be saved to your webspace.

2. How does it work?

The webstats system generates a log file on a daily basis for each of your domains. When activated, the files are stored in the 'logs' folder next to the 'htdocs' folder in the root of your FTP webspace.
The new log files are named www.domain.com (where domain is the name of your domain, this may be your default 'username' web address or a hosted domain) and are rotated daily, with the previous day's log file becoming www.domain.com.0. The following day, this file will be renamed www.domain.com.1 and so on, until the file is finally deleted after having resided on the server for 7 days.

3. How to use Webalizer

Install Webalizer in a folder that you wish to dedicate to webstats (for example C:/webstats/). Follow the installation instructions that come with the downloaded application file
Download your log file from your log folder on you webspace and place them in the webstats folder you created in step 1. Make sure you select the current log file, not the archive which ends in a .0 to .6.
Download and unzip this file fstat.zip then save the contents (fstat.conf) into the same folder.
Open a DOS window Click Start > Run >, then type cmd and click return. You now have a DOS shell.
In the Dos shell, move to the webstats directory on your local drive.
```
cd c:\webstats
```
You will then be placed in the webstats directory and will now be able to run the script with the command:
```
webalizer -c fstat.conf
```

Your logs will be processed and you will informed of the progress as shown below.

Webalizer V2.00-03 (Windows NT 5.0 Service Pack 2) English
Using logfile www.domain.com (combined)
Creating output in current directory
Hostname for reports is 'www.domain.com'
Reading history file... webalizer.hist
Reading previous run data.. webalizer.current
4798 records in 0.00 seconds

This will create an index.html file in your C:\webstats directory with your new daily Webstats!

4. Automating the processing of your log files

With you can create and execute a simple script that will automatically download your log files and run Webalizer. To do this create a file called autostat and add the following lines after creating a folder called stats by typing mkdir stats:
```
snarf -v ftp://username:password@ftp.plus.net/logs
/www.username.plus.com~/stats/stats.log
webalizer -c ~/stats/stats.conf
rm -f ~/stats/stats.log
```
Save the autostat on the server and then you MUST change the file attributes (chmod it to 700) so that only you can read, write and run the file. Unless you make this change, your password may be visible to other Internet users.
```
chmod 700 autostat
```
To test your script you should type
```
./autostats
```

You'll see an output similar to the following;

bash-2.04$ ./autostat
ftp://bob:home@ftp.plus.net/logs/.plus.com(62K)
/files/home3/bob/st [########################] 62K | 5237.97K/s
64085 bytes transferred in 0.01 sec (4952.38k/sec)
Webalizer V2.01-09 (Linux 2.4.16) English
Using logfile /files/home3/bob/stats/stats.log (clf)
Creating output in /files/home3/bob/stats/
Hostname for reports is 'www.bob.plus.com'
Reading history file... webalizer.hist
Reading previous run data.. webalizer.current
319 records (319 ignored) in 0.01 seconds

You will then be able to view your WebStats at ccgi.username.plus.com/stats/

5. Customising the output from Webalizer

Use notepad to open and amend the sample.conf file that comes with the default package. The following options are needed for the config file to work, but they can be amend as needed.

LogFile www.username.plus.comLogType Combined
OutputDir C:\webstats\

If you are collecting daily stats to show trends in your visitors, you will need to use these options to analyse and store them in a internal webalizer file:

HistoryName webalizer.hist
Incremental yes
IncrementalName webalizer.current

To customize the display of your logs, you will need to use ReportTitle and Hostname, these can be changed as needed and do not follow any standard format.

ReportTitle Usage Statistics for
HostName username.plus.com

If you want the output file to have a different extention for your webserver or PC you can specify any of the following: TXT, HTML, SHTML, JHTML or any standard html file format using the line:

HTMLExtension html

These are the main fields that you will need to enable Webalizer to give you some WebStats. If you would like to explore the subject in more depth, please visit Webalizer's homepage.