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Saturday, August 21, 2010

AWStats - Free log file analyzer for advanced statistics (GNU GPL)

I install this on my Server, lets see how it works...

AWStats

AWStats is a free powerful and featureful tool that generates advanced web, streaming, ftp or mail server statistics, graphically. This log analyzer works as a CGI or from command line and shows you all possible information your log contains, in few graphical web pages. It uses a partial information file to be able to process large log files, often and quickly. It can analyze log files from all major server tools like Apache log files (NCSA combined/XLF/ELF log format or common/CLF log format), WebStar, IIS (W3C log format) and a lot of other web, proxy, wap, streaming servers, mail servers and some ftp servers.
Take a look at this comparison table for an idea on features and differences between most famous statistics tools (AWStats, Analog, Webalizer,...).
AWStats is a free software distributed under the GNU General Public License. You can have a look at this license chart to know what you can/can't do.
As AWStats works from the command line but also as a CGI, it can work with all web hosting providers which allow Perl, CGI and log access.

Go there...
http://awstats.sourceforge.net/

AWStats plugins

Plugins are .pm files you can put in your AWStats plugins directory to add new features.
Note that you must enable the plugin by adding a new line in your config files to make it works (See LoadPlugin parameter).

Standard free plugins : tooltips, decodeutfkeys, ipv6, hashfiles, geoip, geoipcity, userinfo, hostinfo, clusterinfo, urlalias, timehires, timezone, rawlog, graphapplet
Other plugins (require other licensed product to work) : geoip_region_maxmind, geoip_isp_maxmind, geoip_org_maxmind,
http://awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_contrib.html#PLUGINS

Other AWStats contribs/tools/package


All following files/products were developped and submitted by contributors. I haven't tried them, so I can't tell you if they work and how they work...
They can enhance AWStats use or save you time giving you a start for a new development.

Other tools:

Replacement Frontend:

BetterAWStats is a PHP Frontend to show you AWStats data file differently.
AWStats PhpNuke module is a module for the open source CMS PHP Nuke.
Ravencore is an Open Source Hosting Control Panel that include AWStats as part of its statistics solutions.
summary4severaldomains.pl is a small perl script that build an index.html page with AWStats txt summary information for each domains on same page (number of pages, hits and bandwith for month).
AWStats Totals is a php page that use AWStats database to show a summary for several config files, on the same page.

Miscellanous:

A plugin for WordPress that allow WordPress users to add tags required by AWStats to report the "miscellanous chart".
Exim2Awstats is a tool to convert Exim MTA log file to a format readable by AWSTats.
Logprocess automate the collection, merging, processing and archiving of IIS log files in a hosting (mult-domain) environment using AWStats to generate and manage stats/reports.
XlencArlm is a tool to enhance use of AWStats with IIS (Catching log files from FTP, doing GMT correction on log files, ...). Don't know if it works correctly but seems to be interesting.
Configurador is a piece of CGI perl scripts to allow you to edit an AWStats config file from the web. Code comments are in Spanish but it may be a goo start to develop your own tool. Hector Garcia Alvarez
logtrans.py is a python small example on how to convert an old log file from IIS4.0 to a new format compatible with AWStats. Don't know if it works, just here to provide you a code sample if you like python.
isa2w3c.pl, is a convertor to have a more standard log file from an ISA log file.
go_awstats, is a tool to automate build of AWStats statics reports for all config files but also for all month.
Stats Letter, is a Perl tool to send AWStats reports to one or several user for one or several reports. Documentation in French only.


Other Non AWStats contribs/tools (not related to AWStats but related to log analysis)

maillog2commonlog.pl converts mail logs in smail or qmail format to the common log format. Note that if you want to analyze, with AWStats, mail log files from postfix, sendmail or qmail, a better solution is to use instead maillogconvert.pl preprocessor (See AWStats F.A.Q about analyzing mail logs).
Joey Hess, freeware.
maillogconv.pl is another mail log processor that can be used to change mail log files into a log file that AWStats can understand.
Note that a derivated and enhanced tool called maillogconvert.pl is provided with AWStats since 5.7. See F.A.Q about analyzing mail logs to know how to setup AWStats with maillogconv.pl or maillogconvert.pl to analyze Postfix, Sendmail, Qmail or MDaemon log files.
mlc is another postfix mail logs converter (written in C). Try it if the maillogconvert.pl tool provided with AWStats does not work on your postfix log file.
access_referer_agent2combined.pl is a perl script that converts a directory of common log format (CLF) access-files, referer-files and agent-files to a single combined.log This is usefull if you have seperate access/referer/agent logfiles and want to use all features of a loganalyzer that require a combined log file.
anonlog "anonymizes" your logfile by encoding sensitive information.
Stephen Turner, freeware.

If you don't like AWStats, you can try thoose other popular similar tools :
Analog. A very old log analyzer (written in C).
Stephen Turner, free software.
Webalizer. Another very old log analyzer (written in C).

There is also commercial products you can find doing a search on 'log file analyzer' with Google.
http://awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_contrib.html#CONTRIB

Frequently Asked Questions + Troubleshooting
http://awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_faq.html#SERVERSOS

Don

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