Installing AWStats

AWStats is a free program that’s available from SourceForge. To download
the program, go to http://awstats.sourceforge.net. After you download
it, install it.
If you’re planning to use AWStats to track your Web site traffic statistics, you
must have access to your Web server. Unless you own that server (or your
company owns the server), you probably don’t have that access. If you’re
purchasing a hosting package from a Web site host, AWStats isn’t the right
program for you to track your statistics. If that’s the case, you need to use a
program, such as Google Analytics, that tracks your statistics without you
having to get access to your Web server.
Assuming you do have access to your Web server, here’s what you’d do to
install AWStats:
1. After you download AWStats (from http://awstats.sourceforge.
net), find the file and extract the AWStats package.
Whatever extraction program (for example, WinZip — available at www.
winzip.com) you use will have different instructions for the extraction
process, so refer to that program’s documentation if you’re not sure
how to use it.
2. If the installation process doesn’t start automatically (it should with
Windows Installer but it won’t with any other operating system),
locate the AWStats Tools Directory and double-click the awstats_
configure.pl script to begin the installation process.
Awstats_configure.pl tries to determine your current log format
from your Apache Web server configuration file, httpd.conf. (The
script asks for the path if it can’t find the file.)
3. If you use a common log, awstats_configure.pl suggests changing
that log to the NCSA combined/XLF/ELF format.
You can use your own custom log format, but this pre-defined log format
is often the best choice and makes setup easier.
If you answer yes, awstats_configure.pl modifies your httpd.
conf file, restarts Apache to apply the changes, and then creates a
new file called awstats.mysite.conf by copying the template file
awstats.model.conf.
These actions should occur automatically (though they may require
your confirmation in some areas).
4. To verify that the main parameters of your new configuration file
match your needs, open awstats.mysite.conf in your favorite text
editor — the file should be located on your hard drive and you can
use the search function of your computer to locate it — and make the
following changes, as required:
Verify the LogFile value. It should be the full path of your server
log file.
Verify the LogType value. It should be W for analyzing Web log files.
Check the LogFormat. It should be set to 1, although you can use a
custom log format if you don’t use the combined log format.
Set the SiteDomain parameter: It should be set to the main domain
name or the intranet Web server name used to reach the Web site
you want to analyze (for example: www.mysite.com). If you have
several possible names for the same site, use the main domain
name and add the others to the list in the HostAlias parameter.
5. When you’ve finished editing these elements, save the file to its original
location.
Installation and configuration are now finished and the wizard should
close automatically.
You may have to wait a couple days to see results from the log analyzer —
and you still have to figure out how the program works if you want to get
your results! After a couple days, however, you can begin creating stats
reports by going to www.myserver.mydomain/awstats/awstats.pl — it’s
a Web-based program. Just remember to replace myserver and mydomain
with your own server and domain information. It’s a pretty complicated process,
though, so I suggest that you read more about using the program by
going to http://awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_setup.
html.
Because Web crawlers change, a log analyzer can occasionally misinterpret a
Web crawler as a real person. It’s not a major mistake, but one of which you
should be aware.