If you’re interested in analyzing log files, a
few Web log file analyzers are available. The most widely known
programs include Analog and The Webalizer.

However, another tool that contains a vast
array of information is AWStats. AWStats is a free Perl program
that you can run for real-time log analysis via a CGI script. In
addition, you can run it periodically to create static Web
pages.

The installation and configuration of this tool
is quite simple. The example config file doesn’t require much
modification. In fact, the only keywords that you really need to
modify are the LogFile, SiteDomain, HostAlias, and DirData
keywords. After you’ve created a new file from the copy (e.g.,
/etc/awstats/awstats.myhost.com.conf) and made these changes,
you’re ready to begin creating reports.

If you’re monitoring a number of sites, you can
create a configuration file for each site and write a cron job that runs every
day and makes static pages. Let’s say that you’ve set up a
directory that will have domains as subdirectories (e.g.,
/srv/www/mysite.com/html/awstats/mysite.com). For this example, you
would view the statistics by going to
http://mysite.com/awstats/mysite.com/.

If you’re running three Web sites (e.g.,
mysite.com, yoursite.com, and hersite.com), your script to process
the statistics for each would look something like the
following:

#!/bin/sh

AWSTATS=”/usr/local/awstats/awstats.pl”
AWBUILD=”/usr/local/awstats/awstats_buildstaticpages.pl”

for i in mysite.com yoursite.com hersite.com;
do
  perl $AWBUILD -config=$i -update -awstatsprog=$AWSTATS
\
    -dir=/srv/www/mysite.com/html/awstats/$i
done

Set this script to run every night, and you’ll
be able to get Web site statistics on all of the Web sites you host
updated daily. AWStats writes the “root” page as
awstats.mysite.com.html, so it’s a good idea to make a symlink of
the file that points to index.html to make it even easier to
view.

To download this handy tool, visit the AWStats Official
Web site.

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