The Webalizer - A web server log file analysis tool
Copyright 1997-2010 by Bradford L. Barrett
Distributed under the GNU GPL. See the files "COPYING" and
"Copyright" supplied with the distribution for additional info.
What is The Webalizer?
----------------------
The Webalizer is a web server log file analysis program which produces
usage statistics in HTML format for viewing with a browser. The results
are presented in both columnar and graphical format, which facilitates
interpretation. Yearly, monthly, daily and hourly usage statistics are
presented, along with the ability to display usage by site, URL, referrer,
user agent (browser), search string, entry/exit page, username and country
(some information is only available if supported and present in the log
files being processed). Processed data may also be exported into most
database and spreadsheet programs that support tab delimited data formats.
The Webalizer supports CLF (common log format) log files, as well as
Combined log formats as defined by NCSA and others, and variations
of these which it attempts to handle intelligently. In addition, The
Webalizer supports wu-ftpd xferlog (FTP) formatted logs, squid proxy logs
and W3C extended format logs.
Gzip compressed logs may be used as input directly. Any log filename
that ends with a '.gz' extension will be assumed to be in gzip format and
uncompressed on the fly as it is being read. The Webalizer now also has
the ability to handle BZip2 compressed logs, if enabled at compile time.
Similar to gzipped logs, any log filename that ends with a '.bz2' will be
assumed to be in bzip2 format and uncompressed on the fly as it is being
read.
For sites that do not enable hostname lookups (DNS resolution) on their
web servers (and have only IP addresses in their logs), The Webalizer
provides its own internal DNS lookup capability as well as geolocation
services (GeoDB). The optional GeoIP library from MaxMind Inc. is also
supported and may be used instead of the native GeoDB database.
A utility program, "The Webalizer (DNS) Cache file Manager", or 'wcmgr'
is also provided which allows the creation and manipulation of the DNS
cache files used and produced by the webalizer. See the file DNS.README
for additional information regarding DNS support.
This documentation applies to The Webalizer Version 2.21
Running the Webalizer
---------------------
The Webalizer was designed to be run from a Unix command line prompt or
as a cron job. There are several command line options which will modify
the results it produces, and configuration files can be used as well.
The format of the command line is:
webalizer [options ...] [log-file]
Where 'options' can be one or more of the supported command line
switches described below. 'log-file' is the name of the log file
to process (see below for more detailed information). If a dash
("-") is specified for the log-file name, STDIN will be used.
Once executed, the general flow of the program follows:
o A default configuration file is scanned for. A file named
'webalizer.conf' is searched for in the current directory, and if
found, its configuration data is parsed. If the file is not
present in the current directory, the file '/etc/webalizer.conf'
is searched for and, if found, is used instead.
o Any command line arguments given to the program are parsed. This
may include the specification of a configuration file, which is
processed at the time it is encountered.
o If a log file was specified, it is opened and made ready for
processing. If no log file was given, or the filename '-' is
specified on the command line, STDIN is used for input.
o If an output directory was specified, the program does a 'chdir' to
that directory in preparation for generating output. If no output
directory was given, the current directory is used.
o If a non-zero number of DNS Children processes were specified, they
will be started, and the specified log file will be processed,
either creating or updating the specified DNS cache file.
o If no hostname was given, the program attempts to get the hostname
using a uname system call. If that fails, 'localhost' is used.
o A history file is searched for. This file keeps previous month
totals used on the main index.html page. The default file is
named 'webalizer.hist', kept in the specified output directory,
however may be changed using the "HistoryName" configuration file
keyword.
o If incremental processing was specified, a data file is searched for
and loaded if found, containing the 'internal state' data of the
program at the end of a previous run. The default file is named
'webalizer.current', kept in the specified output directory, however
may be changed using the "IncrementalName" configuration file keyword.
o Main processing begins on the log file. If the log spans multiple
months, a separate HTML document is created for each month.
o After main processing, the main 'index.html' page is created, which
has totals by month and links to each months HTML document.
o A new history file is saved to disk, which includes totals generated
by The Webalizer during the current run.
o If incremental processing was specified, a data file is written that
contains the 'internal state' data at the end of this run.
Incremental Processing
----------------------
Version 1.2x of The Webalizer adds incremental run capability. Simply
put, this allows processing large log files by breaking them up into
smaller pieces, and processing these pieces instead. What this means
in real terms is that you can now rotate your log files as often as you
want, and still be able to produce monthly usage statistics without the
loss of any detail. This is accomplished by saving and restoring all
relevant internal data to a disk file between runs. Doing so allows the
program to 'start where it left off' so to speak, and allows the
preservation of detail from one run to the next.
Some special precautions need to be taken when using the incremental
run capability of The Webalizer. Configuration options should not be
changed between runs, as that could cause corruption of the internal
stored data. For example, changing the MangleAgents level will cause
different representations of user agents to be stored, producing invalid
results in the user agents section of the report. If you need to change
configuration options, do it at the end of the month after normal
processing of the previous month and before processing the current month.
You may also want to delete the 'webalizer.current' file as well (or
whatever name was specified using the "IncrementalName" configuration
option).
The Webalizer also attempts to prevent data duplication by keeping
track of the timestamp of the last record processed. This timestamp
is then compared to current records being processed, and any records
that were logged previous to that timestamp are ignored. This, in
theory, should allow you to re-process logs that have already been
processed, or process logs that contain a mix of processed/not yet
processed records, and not produce duplication of statistics. The
only time this may break is if you have duplicate timestamps in two
separate log files... any records in the second log file that do have
the same timestamp as the last record in the previous log file processed,
will be discarded as if they had already been processed. There are
lots of ways to prevent this however, for example, stopping the web
server before rotating logs will prevent this situation. This setup
also necessitates that you always process logs in chronological order,
otherwise data loss will occur as a result of the timestamp compare.
Output Produced
---------------
The Webalizer produces several reports (html) and graphics for each
month processed. In addition, a summary page is generated for the
current and previous months (up to 12), a history file is created
and if incremental mode is used, the current month's processed data.
The exact location and names of these files can be changed using
configuration files and command line options. The files produced,
(default names) are:
index.html - Main summary page (extension may be changed)
usage.png - Yearly graph displayed on the main index page
usage_YYYYMM.html - Monthly summary page (extension may be changed)
usage_YYYYMM.png - Monthly usage graph for specified month/year
daily_usage_YYYYMM.png - Daily usage graph for specified month/year
hourly_usage_YYYYMM.png - Hourly usage graph for specified month/year
site_YYYYMM.html - All sites listing (if enabled)
url_YYYYMM.html - All urls listing (if enabled)
ref_YYYYMM.html - All referrers listing (if enabled)
agent_YYYYMM.html - All user agents listing (if enabled)
search_YYYYMM.html - All search strings listing (if enabled)
webalizer.hist - Previous month history (may be changed)
webalizer.current - Incremental Data (may be changed)
site_YYYYMM.tab - tab delimited sites file
url_YYYYMM.tab - tab delimited urls file
ref_YYYYMM.tab - tab delimited referrers file
agent_YYYYMM.tab - tab delimited user agents file
user_YYYYMM.tab - tab delimited usernames file
search_YYYYMM.tab - tab delimited search string file
The yearly (index) report shows statistics for a 12 month period, and
links to each month. The monthly report has detailed statistics for
that month with additional links to any URLs and referrers found.
The various totals shown are explained below.
Hits
Any request made to the server which is logged, is considered a 'hit'.
The requests can be for anything... html pages, graphic images, audio
files, CGI scripts, etc... Each valid line in the server log is
counted as a hit. This number represents the total number of requests
that were made to the server during the specified report period.
Files
Some requests made to the server, require that the server then send
something back to the requesting client, such as a html page or graphic
image. When this happens, it is considered a 'file' and the files
total is incremented. The relationship between 'hits' and 'files' can
be thought of as 'incoming requests' and 'outgoing responses'.
Pages
Pages are, well, pages! Generally, any HTML document, or anything
that generates an HTML document, would be considered a page. This
does not include the other stuff that goes into a document, such as
graphic images, audio clips, etc... This number represents the number
of 'pages' requested only, and does not include the other 'stuff' that
is in the page. What actually constitutes a 'page' can vary from
server to server. The default action is to treat anything with the
extension '.htm', '.html' or '.cgi' as a page. A lot of sites will
probably define other extensions, such as '.phtml', '.php3' and '.pl'
as pages as well. Some people consider this number as the number of
'pure' hits... I'm not sure if I totally agree with that viewpoint.
Some other programs (and people 
refer to this as 'Pageviews'.
Sites
Each request made to the server comes from a unique 'site', which can
be referenced by a name or ultimately, an IP address. The 'sites'
number shows how many unique IP addresses made requests to the server
during the reporting time period. This DOES NOT mean the number of
unique individual users (real people) that visited, which is impossible
to determine using just logs and the HTTP protocol (however, this
number might be about as close as you will get).
Visits
Whenever a request is made to the server from a given IP address
(site), the amount of time since a previous request by the address
is calculated (if any). If the time difference is greater than a
pre-configured 'visit timeout' value (or has never made a request before),
it is considered a 'new visit', and this total is incremented (both
for the site, and the IP address). The default timeout value is 30
minutes (can be changed), so if a user visits your site at 1:00 in
the afternoon, and then returns at 3:00, two visits would be registered.
Note: in the 'Top Sites' table, the visits total should be discounted
on 'Grouped' records, and thought of as the "Minimum number of visits"
that came from that grouping instead. Note: Visits only occur on
PageType requests, that is, for any request whose URL is one of the
'page' types defined with the PageType and PagePrefix option, and not
excluded by the OmitPage option. Due to the limitation of the HTTP
protocol, log rotations and other factors, this number should not be
taken as absolutely accurate, rather, it should be considered a pretty
close "guess".
KBytes
The KBytes (kilobytes) value shows the amount of data, in KB, that
was sent out by the server during the specified reporting period. This
value is generated directly from the log file, so it is up to the
web server to produce accurate numbers in the logs (some web servers
do stupid things when it comes to reporting the number of bytes). In
general, this should be a fairly accurate representation of the amount
of outgoing traffic the server had, regardless of the web servers
reporting quirks.
Note: A kilobyte is 1024 bytes, not 1000
Top Entry and Exit Pages
The Top Entry and Exit tables give a rough estimate of what URLs
are used to enter your site, and what the last pages viewed are.
Because of limitations in the HTTP protocol, log rotations, etc...
this number should be considered a good "rough guess" of the actual
numbers, however will give a good indication of the overall trend in
where users come into, and exit, your site.
Command Line Options
--------------------
The Webalizer supports many different configuration options that will
alter the way the program behaves and generates output. Most of these
can be specified on the command line, while some can only be specified
in a configuration file. The command line options are listed below,
with references to the corresponding configuration file keywords.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Options
---------------
-h Display all available command line options and exit program.
-v Be Verbose. This will cause the program to print additional
information at run time. It is the same as specifying
"Quiet no", "ReallyQuiet no" and "Debug yes" config options.
-V Display the program version and exit. Additional program
specific information will be displayed if 'verbose' mode is
also used (e.g. '-vV'), which can be useful when submitting
bug reports.
-d Display additional 'debugging' information for errors and
warnings produced during processing. This normally would
not be used except to determine why you are getting all those
errors and wanted to see the actual data. Normally The
Webalizer will just tell you it found an error, not the
actual data. This option will display the data as well.
Config file keyword: Debug
-F Specify the log file type to process. Normally, the
Webalizer expects to find a valid CLF or Combined format
we server log file. This option allows you to process
wu-ftpd xferlogs, squid and W3C formatted web logs as well.
Values can be either 'clf', 'ftp', 'squid' or 'w3c' with
'clf' being the default. Only the first character needs
to be specified (eg: -Fs will process a squid log).
Config file keyword: LogType
-f Fold out of sequence log records back into analysis, by
treating them as if they were the same date/time as the
last good record. Normally, out of sequence log records
are ignored. If you run apache, don't worry about this.
Config file keyword: FoldSeqErr
-i Ignore history file. USE WITH CAUTION. This causes The
Webalizer to ignore any existing history file produced from
previous runs and generate its output from scratch. The
effect will be as if The Webalizer is being run for the
first time and any previous statistics will be lost (although
the HTML documents, if any, will not be deleted) on the main
index.html (yearly) web page.
Config file keyword: IgnoreHist
-b Ignore incremental data file. USE WITH CAUTION. This causes
The Webalizer to ignore any existing incremental (state) data
file produced by previous runs. By ignoring the incremental
data file, all previous processing for the current month will
be lost, and those logs must be re-processed.
Config file keyword: IgnoreState
-p Preserve state (incremental processing). This allows the
processing of partial logs in increments. At the end of
the program, all relevant internal data is saved, so that
it may be restored the next time the program is run. This
allows sites that must rotate their logs more than once a
month to still be able to use The Webalizer, and not worry
about having to gather and feed an entire months logs to
the program at the end of the month. See the section on
"Incremental Processing" below for additional information.
The default is to not perform incremental processing. Use
this command line option to enable the feature.
Config file keyword: Incremental
-q Quiet mode. Normally, The Webalizer will produce various
messages while it runs letting you know what its doing.
This option will suppress those messages. It should be
noted that this WILL NOT suppress errors and warnings, which
are output to STDERR.
Config file keyword: Quiet
-Q ReallyQuiet mode. This allows suppression of all messages
generated by The Webalizer, including warnings and errors.
Useful when The Webalizer is run as a cron job.
Config file keyword: ReallyQuiet
-T Display timing information. The Webalizer keeps track of the
time it begins and ends processing, and normally displays the
total processing time at the end of each run. If quiet mode
(-q or 'Quiet yes' in configuration file) is specified, this
information is not displayed. This option forces the display
of timing totals if quiet mode has been specified, otherwise
it is redundant and will have no effect.
Config file keyword: TimeMe
-c file This option specifies a configuration file to use. Configuration
files allow greater control over how The Webalizer behaves, and
there are several ways to use them. As of version 0.98, The
Webalizer searches for a default configuration file in the
current directory named "webalizer.conf", and if not found,
will search in the /etc/ directory for a file of the same name.
In addition, you may specify a configuration file to use with
this command line option.
-n name This option specifies the hostname for the reports generated.
The hostname is used in the title of all reports, and is also
prepended to URLs in the reports. This allows The Webalizer
to be run on log files for 'virtual' web servers or web servers
that are different than the machine the reports are located on,
and still allows clicking on the URLs to go to the proper
location. If a hostname is not specified, either on the
command line or in a configuration file, The Webalizer attempts
to determine the hostname using a 'uname' system call. If this
fails, "localhost" will be used as the hostname.
Config file keyword: HostName
-o dir This options specifies the output directory for the reports.
If not specified here or in a configuration file, the current
default directory will be used for output.
Config file keyword: OutputDir
-x name This option allows the generated pages to have an extension
other than '.html', which is the default. Do not include the
leading period ('.') when you specify the extension.
Config file keyword: HTMLExtension
-P name Specify the file extensions for 'pages'. Pages (sometimes
called 'PageViews') are normally html documents and CGI
scripts that display the whole page, not just parts of it.
Some system will need to define a few more, such as 'phtml',
'php3' or 'pl' in order to have them counted as well. The
default is 'htm*' and 'cgi' for web logs and 'txt' for ftp.
Config file keyword: PageType
-O name Specify URLs which are not counted as 'pages'. Requests
matching one of these URLs will not be counted as a page, even
if they have an extension matching one of the PageTypes defined
above or have no extension at all.
Config file keyword: OmitPage
-t name This option specifies the title string for all reports. This
string is used, in conjunction with the hostname (if not blank)
to produce the actual title. If not specified, the default of
"Usage Statistics for" will be used.
Config file keyword: ReportTitle
-Y Suppress Country graph. Normally, The Webalizer produces
country statistics in both Graph and Columnar forms. This
option will suppress the Country Graph from being generated.
Config file keyword: CountryGraph
-G Suppress hourly graph. Normally, The Webalizer produces
hourly statistics in both Graph and Columnar forms. This
option will suppress the Hourly Graph only from being generated.
Config file keyword: HourlyGraph
-H Suppress Hourly statistics. Normally, The Webalizer produces
hourly statistics in both Graph and Columnar forms. This
option will suppress the Hourly Statistics table only from
being generated.
Config file keyword: HourlyStats
-K num Specify how many months should be displayed in the main index
(yearly summary) table. Default is 12 months. Can be set to
anything between 12 and 120 months (1 to 10 years).
Config file keyword: IndexMonths
-k num Specify how many months should be displayed in the main index
(yearly summary) graph. Default is 12 months. Can be set to
anything between 12 and 72 months (1 to 6 years).
Config file keyword: GraphMonths
-L Disable Graph Legends. The color coded legends displayed on
the in-line graphs can be disabled with this option. The
default is to display the legends.
Config file keyword: GraphLegend
-l num Graph Lines. Specify the number of background reference
lines displayed on the in-line graphics produced. The default
is 2 lines, however can range anywhere from zero ('0') for
no lines, up to 20 lines (looks funny!).
Config file keyword: GraphLines
-P name Page type. This is the extension of files you consider to
be pages for Pages calculations (sometimes called 'pageviews').
The default is 'htm*' and 'cgi' (plus whatever HTMLExtension
you specified if it is different). Don't use a period!
-m num Specify a 'visit timeout'. Visits are calculated by looking at
the time difference between the current and last request made
by a specific host. If the difference is greater that the
visit timeout value, the request is considered a new visit.
This value is specified in number of seconds. The default
is 30 minutes (1800).
Config file keyword: VisitTimeout
-M num Mangle user agent names. Normally, The Webalizer will keep
track of the user agent field verbatim. Unfortunately, there are
a ton of different names that user agents go by, and the field
also reports other items such as machine type and OS used. For
Example, Netscape 4.03 running on Windows 95 will report a
different string than Netscape 4.03 running on Windows NT, so even
though they are the same browser type, they will be considered
as two totally different browsers by The Webalizer. For that
matter, Netscape 4.0 running on Windows NT will report different
names if one is run on an Alpha and the other on an Intel
processor! Internet Exploder is even worse, as it reports itself
as if it were Netscape and you have to search the given string a
little deeper to discover that it is really MSIE! In order to
consolidate generic browser types, this option will cause The
Webalizer to 'mangle' the user agent field, attempting to
consolidate generic browser types. There are 6 levels that can be
specified, each producing different levels of detail. Level 5
displays only the browser name (MSIE or Mozilla) and the major
version number. Level 4 will also display the minor version
number (single decimal place). Level 3 will display the minor
version number to two decimal places. Level 2 will add any
sub-level designation (such as Mozilla/3.01Gold or MSIE 3.0b).
Level 1 will also attempt to add the system type. The default
Level 0 will disable name mangling and leave the user agent
field unmodified, producing the greatest amount of detail.
Configuration file keyword: MangleAgents
-g num This option allows you to specify the level of domains name
grouping to be performed. The numeric value represents the
level of grouping, and can be thought of as the 'number of
dots' to be displayed. The default value of 0 disables any
domain name grouping.
Configuration file keyword: GroupDomains
-D name This allows the specification of a DNS Cache file name. This
filename MUST be specified if you have dns lookups enabled
(using the -N command line switch or DNSChildren configuration
keyword). The filename is relative to the default output
directory if an absolute path is not specified (ie: starts
with a leading '/'). This option is only available if DNS
support was enabled at compile time, otherwise an 'Invalid
Keyword' error will be generated. See the DNS.README file
for additional information regarding DNS lookups.
Configuration file keyword: DNSCache
-N num Number of DNS child processes to use for reverse DNS lookups.
If specified, a DNSCache name MUST be specified also. If you
do not wish a DNS cache file to be generated, specify a value
of zero ('0') to disable it. This does not prevent using an
existing cache file, only the generation of one at run time.
See the DNS.README file for additional information.
Configuration file keyword: DNSChildren
-j Enable native GeoDB geolocation services.
Configuration file keyword: GeoDB
-J name Specify an alternate GeoDB database filename to use. This
shouldn't normally be needed. If used, the filename 'name'
is relative to the output directory being used unless an
absolute path is specified (ie: starts with a leading '/').
Configuration file keyword: GeoDBDatabase
-w Enable GeoIP support if it is available.
Configuration file keyword: GeoIP
-W name Specify an alternate GeoIP database filename to use. This
shouldn't normally be needed. If used, the filename 'name'
is relative to the specified output directory unless an
absolute name is given (ie: starts with a leading '/').
Configuration file keyword: GeoIPDatabase
-z name Specify location of the country flag graphics and enable
their display in the top country table. The directory name
is relative to the output directory unless an absolute path
is specified (ie: starts with a leading '/').
Configuration file keyword: FlagDir
Hide Options
------------
The following options take a string argument to use as a comparison
for matching. Except for the IndexAlias option, the string argument
can be plain text, or plain text that either starts or ends with the
wildcard character '*'.
For Example:
Given the string "yourmama/was/here", the arguments "was", "*here" and
"your*" will all produce a match.
-a name This option allows hiding of user agents (browsers) from the
"Top User Agents" table in the report. This option really
isn't too useful as there are a zillion different names that
current browsers go by, depending where they were obtained,
however you might have some particular user agents that hit
your site a lot that you would like to exclude from the list.
You must have a web server that includes user agents in its
log files for this option to be of any use. In addition, it
is also useless if you disable the user agent table in the
report (see the -A command line option or "TopAgents"
configuration file keyword). You can specify as many of these
as you want on the command line. The wildcard character '*'
can be used either in front of or at the end of the string.
(ie: Mozilla/4.0* would match anything that starts with the
string "Mozilla/4.0").
Config file keyword: HideAgent
-r name This option allows hiding of referrers from the "Top Referrer"
table in the report. Referrers are URLs, either on your own
local site or a remote site, that referred the user to a URL
on your web server. This option is normally used to hide
your own server from the table, as your own pages are usually
the top referrers to your own pages (well, you get the idea).
You must have a web server that includes referrer information
in the log files for this option to be of any use. In addition,
it is also useless if you disable the referrers table in the
report (see the -R command line option or "TopReferrers"
configuration file keyword). You can specify as many of these
as you like on the command line.
Config file keyword: HideReferrer
-s name This option allows hiding of sites from the "Top Sites" table
in the report. Normally, you will only want to hide your own
domain name from the report, as it usually is one of the top
sites to visit your web server. This option is of no use if
you disable the top sites table in the report (see the -S
command line option or "TopSites" configuration file option).
Config file keyword: HideSite
-X This causes all individual sites to be hidden, which results
in only grouped sites to be displayed on the report.
Config file keyword: HideAllSites
-u name This option allows hiding of URLs from the "Top URLs" table
in the report. Normally, this option is used to hide images,
audio files and other objects your web server dishes out that
would otherwise clutter up the table. This option is of no
use if you disable the top URLs table in the report (see the
-U command line option or "TopURLs" configuration file keyword).
Config file keyword: HideURL
-I name This option allows you to specify additional index.html aliases.
The Webalizer usually strips the string 'index.*' from URLs
before processing (unless disabled using the 'DefaultIndex'
config option), which has the effect of turning a URL such
as /somedir/index.html into just /somedir/ which is really the
same URL and should be treated as such. This option allows you
to specify additional strings that are to be treated the same
way. Use with care, improper use could cause unexpected results.
For example, if you specify the alias string of 'home', a URL
such as /somedir/homepages/brad/home.html would be converted
into just /somedir/ which probably isn't what was intended.
This option is useful if your web server uses a different default
index page other than the standard 'index.html' or 'index.htm',
such as 'home.html' or 'homepage.html'. The string specified
is searched for anywhere in the URL, so "home.htm" would
turn both "/somedir/home.htm" and "/somedir/home.html" into
just "/somedir/". Wildcards are not allowed on this one.
Config file keyword: IndexAlias
Table Size Options
------------------
-e num This option specifies the number of entries to display in the
"Top Entry Pages" table. To disable the table, use a value of
zero (0).
Config file keyword: TopEntry
-E num This option specifies the number of entries to display in the
"Top Exit Pages" table. To disable the table, use a value of
zero (0).
Config file keyword: TopExit
-A num This option specifies the number of entries to display in the
"Top User Agents" table. To disable the table, use a value of
zero (0).
Config file keyword: TopAgents
-C num This option specifies the number of entries to display in the
"Top Countries" table. To disable the table, use a value of
zero (0).
Config file keyword: TopCountries
-R num This option specifies the number of entries to display in the
"Top Referrers" table. To disable the table, use a value of
zero (0).
Config file keyword: TopReferrers
-S num This option specifies the number of entries to display in the
"Top Sites" table. To disable the table, use a value of
zero (0).
Config file keyword: TopSites
-U num This option specifies the number of entries to display in the
"Top URLs" table. To disable the table, use a value of
zero (0).
Config file keyword: TopURLs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONFIGURATION FILES
-------------------
The Webalizer allows configuration files to be used in order to simplify
life for all. There are several ways that configuration files are accessed
by the Webalizer. When The Webalizer first executes, it looks for a
default configuration file named "webalizer.conf" in the current directory,
and if not found there, will look for "/etc/webalizer.conf". In addition,
configuration files may be specified on the command line with the '-c'
option. There are lots of different ways you can combine the use of
configuration files and command line options to produce various results.
The Webalizer always looks for and reads configuration options from a
default configuration file before doing anything else. Because of this,
you can override options found in the default file by use of additional
configuration files specified on the command line or command line options
themselves. If you specify a configuration file on the command line, you
can override options in it by additional command line options which follow.
For example, most users will most likely want to create the default file
/etc/webalizer.conf and place options in it to specify the hostname, log
file, table options, etc... At the end of the month when a different log
file is to be used (the end of month log), you can run The Webalizer as
usual, but put the different filename on the end of the command line, which
will override the log file specified in the configuration file. It should
be noted that you cannot override some configuration file options by the
use of command line arguments. For example, if you specify "Quiet yes" in
a configuration file, you cannot override this with a command line argument,
as the command line option only enables the feature (-q option).
The configuration files are standard ASCII text files that may be created
or edited using any standard editor. Blank lines and lines that begin
with a pound sign ('#') are ignored. Any other lines are considered to
be configuration lines, and have the form "Keyword Value", where the
'Keyword' is one of the currently available configuration keywords defined
below, and 'Value' is the value to assign to that particular option. Any
text found after the keyword up to the end of the line is considered the
keyword's value, so you should not include anything after the actual value
on the line that is not actually part of the value being assigned. The
file "sample.conf" provided with the distribution contains lots of useful
documentation and examples as well. It should be noted that you do not
have to use any configuration files at all, in which case, default values
will be used (which should be sufficient for most sites).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Configuration Keywords
------------------------------
LogFile This defines the log file to use. It should be a fully qualified
name (ie: contain the path), but relative names will work as
well. If not specified, the logfile defaults to STDIN.
LogType This specified the log file type being used. Normally, The
Webalizer processes web logs in either CLF or Combined format.
You may also process wu-ftpd xferlog formatted logs, squid
proxy logs or W3C formatted web logs by setting the appropriate
type using this keyword. Values may be either 'clf', 'ftp',
'squid' or 'w3c'. Ensure that you specify the proper file type,
otherwise you will be presented with a long stream of 'invalid
record' messages when the Webalizer is run 
Command line argument: -F
OutputDir This defines the output directory to use for the reports. If
it is not specified, the current directory is used.
Command line argument: -o
HistoryName Allows specification of a history path/filename if desired.
The default is to use the file named 'webalizer.hist', kept
in the normal output directory (OutputDir above). Any name
specified is relative to the normal output directory unless
an absolute path name is given (ie: starts with a '/').
ReportTitle This specifies the title to use for the generated reports.
It is used in conjunction with the hostname (unless blank)
to produce the final report titles. If not defined, the
default of "Usage Statistics for" is used.
Command line argument: -t
HostName This defines the hostname. The hostname is used in the
report title as well as being prepended to URLs in the
"Top URLs" table. This allows The Webalizer to be run
on "virtual" web servers, or servers that do not reside
on the local machine, and allows clicking on the URL to
go to the right place. If not specified, The Webalizer
attempts to get the hostname via a 'uname' system call,
and if that fails, will default to "localhost".
Command line argument: -n
UseHTTPS Causes the links in the 'Top URLs' table to use 'https://'
instead of the default 'http://' prefix. Not much use if
you run a mix of secure/insecure servers on your machine.
Only useful if you run the analysis on a secure servers
logs, and want the links in the table to work properly.
HTAccess Enables the creation of a default .htaccess file in the
output directory. If enabled, the file will be created
(with a single "DirectoryIndex" directive), unless one
already exists. The default is 'no', which disables the
creation of any .htaccess files.
Quiet This allows you to enable or disable informational messages
while it is running. The values for this keyword can be
either 'yes' or 'no'. Using "Quiet yes" will suppress these
messages, while "Quiet no" will enable them. The default
is 'no' if not specified, which will allow The Webalizer
to display informational messages. It should be noted that
this option has no effect on Warning or Error messages that
may be generated, as they go to STDERR.
Command line argument: -q
ReallyQuiet This allows all generated output to be suppressed, including
warning and error messages. The values for this keyword
can be either 'yes' or 'no', with 'no' being the default.
Command line argument: -Q
TimeMe This allows you to display timing information regardless of
any "quiet mode" specified. Useful only if you did in fact
tell the webalizer to be quiet either by using the -q command
line option or the "Quiet" keyword, otherwise timing stats
are normally displayed anyway. Values may be either 'yes'
or 'no', with the default being 'no'.
Command line argument: -T
GMTTime This keyword allows timestamps to be displayed in GMT (UTC)
time instead of local time. Normally The Webalizer will
display timestamps in the time-zone of the local machine
(ie: PST or EDT). This keyword allows you to specify the
display of timestamps in GMT (UTC) time instead. Values
may be either 'yes' or 'no'. Default is 'no'.
Debug This tells The Webalizer to display additional information
when it encounters Warnings or Errors. Normally, The
Webalizer will just tell you it found a bad record or
field. This option will enable the display of the actual
data that produced the Warning or Error as well. Useful
only if you start getting lots of Warnings or Errors and
want to determine the cause. Values may be either 'yes'
or 'no', with the default being 'no'.
Command line argument: -d
IgnoreHist This suppresses the reading of a history file. USE WITH
EXTREME CAUTION as the history file is how The Webalizer
keeps track of previous months. The effect of this option
is as if The Webalizer was being run for the very first
time, and any previous data is discarded. Values may be
either 'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'no'.
Command line argument: -i
IgnoreState This suppresses the reading of an existing incremental
data file. USE WITH EXTREME CAUTION! By ignoring an
existing incremental data file, all previous processing
for the current month will be lost, and those logs must
be re-processed. Values may be 'yes' or 'no', with the
default being 'no'.
Command line argument: -b
FoldSeqErr Allows log records that are out of sequence to be folded
back into the analysis, by treating them as if they had
the same date/time as the last good record. Normally,
out of sequence log records are simply ignored. If you
run apache, don't worry about this.
VisitTimeout Set the 'visit timeout' value. Visits are determined by
looking at the time difference between the current and last
request made by a specific site. If the difference in time
is greater than the visit timeout value, the request is
considered a new visit. The value is in number of seconds,
and defaults to 30 minutes (1800).
Command line argument: -m
PageType Allows you to define the 'page' type extension. Normally,
people consider HTML and CGI scripts as 'pages'. This
option allows you to specify what extensions you consider
a page. Default is 'htm*' and 'cgi' for web logs, and
'txt' for ftp logs.
Command line argument: -P
PagePrefix Allows all requests with a specified prefix to be considered
as 'pages'. If you want everything under /documents to be
treated as pages no matter what their extension is. Also
useful if you have cgi-scripts with PATH_INFO.
OmitPage Allows specified URLs to not be counted as pages under any
circumstance, even if they have an extension matching a
PageType or PagePrefix as defined above.
GraphLegend Enable/disable the display of color coded legends on the
produced graphs. Default is 'yes', to display them.
Command line argument: -L
GraphLines Specify the number of background reference lines to display
on produced graphs. The default is 2. To disable the use
of background lines, use zero ('0').
Command line argument: -l
IndexMonths Specify the number of months to display in the main index
(yearly summary) table. Default is 12 months. Can be set
to anything between 12 and 120 months (1 to 10 years).
Command line argument: -K
YearHeaders Enable/disable the display of year headers in the main index
(yearly summary) table. If enabled, year headers will be
shown when the table is displaying more than 16 months worth
of data. Values can be 'yes' or 'no'. Default is 'yes'.
GraphMonths Specify the number of months to display in the main index
(yearly summary) graph. Default is 12 months. Can be set
to anything between 12 and 72 months (1 to 6 years).
Command line argument: -k
CountryGraph This keyword is used to either enable or disable the creation
and display of the Country Usage graph. Values may be either
'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'yes'.
Command line argument: -Y
CountryFlags Enables or disables the display of flags in the top country
table. If enabled, the default directory 'flags' directly
under the output directory will be used unless a different
path is specified with the 'FlagDir' option below.
Command line argument: -zflags
FlagDir Specifies the location of flag graphics. If not specified,
the default is in the 'flags' directory directly under the
output directory being used for the reports. If specified,
the display of flags will be enabled by default.
Command line argument: -z
DailyGraph This keyword is used to either enable or disable the creation
and display of the Daily Usage graph. Values may be either
'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'yes'.
DailyStats This keyword is used to either enable or disable the creation
and display of the Daily Usage statistics table. Values may
be either 'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'yes'.
HourlyGraph This keyword is used to either enable or disable the creation
and display of the Hourly Usage graph. Values may be either
'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'yes'.
Command line argument: -G
HourlyStats This keyword is used to either enable or disable the creation
and display of the Hourly Usage statistics table. Values may
be either 'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'yes'.
Command line argument: -H
IndexAlias This allows additional 'index.html' aliases to be defined.
Normally, The Webalizer scans for and strips the string
"index." from URLs before processing them (unless disabled
using the DefaultIndex config option below). This turns a
URL such as /somedir/index.html into just /somedir/ which
is really the same URL. This keyword allows additional
names to be treated in the same fashion for sites that use
different default names, such as "home.html". The string
is scanned for anywhere in the URL, so care should be used
if and when you define additional aliases. For example,
if you were to use an alias such as 'home', the URL
/somedir/homepages/brad/home.html would be turned into just
/somedir/ which probably isn't the intended result. Instead,
you should have specified 'home.htm' which would correctly
turn the URL into /somedir/homepages/brad/ like intended.
It should also be noted that specified aliases are scanned
for in EVERY log record... A bunch of aliases will noticeably
degrade performance as each record has to be scanned for
every alias defined. You don't have to specify 'index.' as
it is always the default (unless disabled with the config
option "DefaultIndex" described below).
Command line argument: -I
DefaultIndex This option is used to enable/disable the use of "index." as
a default index name to be stripped from the end of a URL.
Most sites should not need to use this option, however some
may find it useful, particularly those whose default index
file name is something different, or those sites that use
'index.php' or similar URLs to generate dynamic content.
This option does not effect any of the names that may be
defined using the IndexAlias option, and those names will
still function as described. Values may be 'yes' or 'no',
with 'yes' being the default.
MangleAgents The MangleAgents keyword specifies the level of user agent
name mangling, if any. There are 6 levels that may be specified,
each producing a different level of detail displayed. Level 5
displays only the browser name (MSIE or Mozilla) and the major
version number. Level 4 adds the minor version (single
decimal place). Level 3 adds the minor version to two decimal
places. Level 2 will also add any sub-level designation
(such as Mozilla/3.01Gold or MSIE 3.0b). Level 1 will also
attempt to add the system type. The default level 0 will
leave the user agent field unmodified and produces the
greatest amount of detail.
Command line argument: -M
SearchEngine This keyword allows specification of search engines and
their query strings. Search strings are obtained from
the referrer field in the record, and in order to work
properly, the Webalizer needs to know what query strings
different search engines use. The SearchEngine allows
you to specify the search engine and its query string
to parse the search string from. The line is formatted
as: "SearchEngine engine-string query-string" where
'engine-string' is a substring for matching the search
engine with, such as "yahoo.com" or "altavista". The
'query-string' is the unique query string that is added
to the URL for the search engine, such as "search=" or
"MT=" with the actual search strings appended to the
end. There is no command line option for this keyword.
SearchCaseI The SearchCaseI option specifies if search strings should
be lowercased (case insensitive) or not. Since most
search engines use case insensitive searches (ie: a
search for "Hello" is the same as "HELLO" or "hello"),
converting to lowercase will improve keyword accuracy,
which is the default. If desired, case sensitivity can
be forced with this option. The value can be 'yes' or
'no', with 'yes' (case insensitive) being the default.
Incremental This allows incremental processing to be enabled or disabled.
Incremental processing allows processing partial logs without
the loss of detail data from previous runs in the same month.
This feature saves the 'internal state' of the program so that
it may be restored in following runs. See the section above
titled "Incremental Processing" for additional information.
The value may be 'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'no'.
Command line argument: -p
IncrementalName
Allows specification of the incremental data filename if
desired. Normally, the file named "webalizer.current' is
used, kept in the standard output directory. If specified,
filenames are relative to the standard output directory,
unless an absolute name is given (ie: starts with '/').
StripCGI Determines if CGI variables should be stripped from the
end of URLs or not. Normally, these variables are removed
from URLs to improve accuracy, however some sites may wish
to keep them preserved (particularly on highly dynamic
sites). Values may be either 'yes' or 'no', with 'yes'
being the default.
TrimSquidURL Allows squid log URLs to be reduced in granularity by
truncating them after a specified number of '/' path
separators after the http:// portion. A value of 1 will
cause all URLs to be summarized by domain only. The
default value is zero (0), which leaves URLs unmodified.
DNSCache Specifies the DNS cache filename. This name is relative
to the default output directory unless an absolute name
is given (ie: starts with '/'). See the DNS.README file
for additional information.
Command line argument: -D
DNSChildren The number of DNS children processes to run in order to
create/update the DNS cache file. If specified, the DNS
cache filename must also be specified (see above). Use
a value of zero ('0') to disable. See the DNS.README
file for additional information.
Command line argument: -N
CacheIPs Specifies if unresolved addresses should also be cached
in the DNS database. If enabled, unresolved IP addresses
will be stored along with resolved addresses. This may
be useful on some sites that have lots of unresolved IPs
visiting so they are not looked up each time the program
is run. Values may be 'yes' or 'no'. Default is 'no'.
CacheTTL Specifies the Time To Live (TTL) value for cached DNS
entries in days. Default value is 7 (1 week). Can be
any value between 1 and 100.
GeoDB Controls the use of the native GeoDB geolocation services
provided by The Webalizer. Values may be 'yes' or 'no'
with 'no' being the default.
Command line argument: -j
GeoDBDatabase Specifies and alternate GeoDB database filename to use.
This is relative to the output directory being used unless
an absolute path is given (ie: starts with a '/').
Command line argument: -J
GeoIP Controls the use of GeoIP geolocation services. If The
Webalizer was compiled with GeoIP support, it is used by
default. Values may be 'yes' or 'no'. Default is 'yes'.
Command line argument: -w
GeoIPDatabase Specifies an alternate GeoIP database filename to use.
This name is relative to the default output directory
unless an absolute name is given (ie: starts with '/').
Command line argument: -W
Top Table Keywords
------------------
TopAgents This allows you to specify how many "Top" user agents are
displayed in the "Top User Agents" table. The default
is 15. If you do not want to display user agent statistics,
specify a value of zero (0). The display of user agents
will only work if your web server includes this information
in its log file (ie: a combined log format file).
Command line argument: -A
AllAgents Will cause a separate HTML page to be generated for all
normally visible User Agents. A link will be added to
the bottom of the "Top User Agents" table if enabled.
Value can be either 'yes' or 'no', with 'no' being the
default.
TopCountries This allows you to specify how many "Top" countries are
displayed in the "Top Countries" table. The default is
30. If you want to disable the countries table, specify
a value of zero (0).
Command line argument: -C
TopReferrers This allows you to specify how many "Top" referrers are
displayed in the "Top Referrers" table. The default is
30. If you want to disable the referrers table, specify
a value of zero (0). The display of referrer information
will only work if your web server includes this information
in its log file (ie: a combined log format file).
Command line argument: -R
AllReferrers Will cause a separate HTML page to be generated for all
normally visible Referrers. A link will be added to the
"Top Referrers" table if enabled. Value can be either
'yes' or 'no', with 'no' being the default.
TopSites This allows you to specify how many "Top" sites are
displayed in the "Top Sites" table. The default is 30.
If you want to disable the sites table, specify a value
of zero (0).
Command line argument: -S
TopKSites Identical to TopSites, except for the 'by KByte' table.
Default is 10. No command line switch for this one.
AllSites Will cause a separate HTML page to be generated for all
normally visible Sites. A link will be added to the
bottom of the "Top Sites" table if enabled. Value can
be either 'yes' or 'no', with 'no' being the default.
TopURLs This allows you to specify how many "Top" URLs are
displayed in the "Top URLs" table. The default is 30.
If you want to disable the URLs table, specify a value
of zero (0).
Command line argument: -U
TopKURLs Identical to TopURLs, except for the 'by KByte' table.
Default is 10. No command line switch for this one.
AllURLs Will cause a separate HTML page to be generated for all
normally visible URLs. A link will be added to the
bottom of the "Top URLs" table if enabled. Value can
be either 'yes' or 'no', with 'no' being the default.
TopEntry Allows you to specify how many "Top Entry Pages" are
displayed in the table. The default is 10. If you
want to disable the table, specify a value of zero (0).
Command line argument: -e
TopExit Allows you to specify how many "Top Exit Pages" are
displayed in the table. The default is 10. If you
want to disable the table, specify a value of zero (0).
Command line argument: -E
TopSearch Allows you to specify how many "Top Search Strings" are
displayed in the table. The default is 20. If you
want to disable the table, specify a value of zero (0).
Only works if using combined log format (ie: contains
referrer information).
TopUsers This allows you to specify how many "Top" usernames are
displayed in the "Top Usernames" table. Usernames are
only available if you use http authentication on your
web server, or when processing wu-ftpd xferlogs. The
default value is 20. If you want to disable the Username
table, specify a value of zero (0).
AllUsers Will cause a separate HTML page to be generated for all
normally visible usernames. A link will be added to the
bottom of the "Top Usernames" table if enabled. Value
can be either 'yes' or 'no', with 'no' being the default.
AllSearchStr Will create a separate HTML page to be generated for all
normally visible Search Strings. A link will be added
to the bottom of the "Top Search Strings" table if
enabled. Value can be either 'yes' or 'no', with 'no'
being the default.
Hide Object Keywords
--------------------
These keywords allow you to hide user agents, referrers, sites, URLs
and usernames from the various "Top" tables. The value for these keywords
are the same as those used in their command line counterparts. You
can specify as many of these as you want without limit. Refer to the
section above on "Command Line Options" for a description of the string
formatting used as the value. Values cannot exceed 80 characters in
length.
HideAgent This allows specified user agents to be hidden from the
"Top User Agents" table. Not very useful, since there
a zillion different names by which browsers go by today,
but could be useful if there is a particular user agent
(ie: robots, spiders, real-audio, etc..) that hits your
site frequently enough to make it into the top user agent
listing. This keyword is useless if 1) your log file does
not provide user agent information or 2) you disable the
user agent table.
Command line argument: -a
HideReferrer This allows you to hide specified referrers from the
"Top Referrers" table. Normally, you would only specify
your own web server to be hidden, as it is usually the
top generator of references to your own pages. Of course,
this keyword is useless if 1) your log file does not include
referrer information or 2) you disable the top referrers
table.
Command line argument: -r
HideSite This allows you to hide specified sites from the "Top
Sites" table. Normally, you would only specify your own
web server or other local machines to be hidden, as they
are usually the highest hitters of your web site, especially
if you have their browsers home page pointing to it.
Command line argument: -s
HideAllSites This allows hiding all individual sites from the display,
which can be useful when a lot of groupings are being
used (since grouped records cannot be hidden). It is
particularly useful in conjunction with the GroupDomain
feature, however can be useful in other situations as well.
Value can be either 'yes' or 'no', with 'no' the default.
Command line argument: -X
HideURL This allows you to hide URLs from the "Top URLs" table.
Normally, this is used to hide items such as graphic files,
audio files or other 'non-html' files that are transferred
to the visiting user.
Command line argument: -u
HideUser This allows you to hide Usernames from the "Top Usernames"
table. Usernames are only available if you use http based
authentication on your web server.
Group Object Keywords
---------------------
The Group* keywords allow object grouping based on Site, URL, Referrer,
User Agent and Usernames. Combined with the Hide* keywords, you can
customize exactly what will be displayed in the 'Top' tables. For example,
to only display totals for a particular directory, use a GroupURL and
HideURL with the same value (ie: '/help/*'). Group processing is only
done after the individual record has been fully processed, so name mangling
and site total updates have already been performed. Because of this, groups
are not counted in the main site total (as that would cause duplication).
Groups can be displayed in bold and shaded as well. Grouped records are
not, by default, hidden from the report. This allows you to display a
grouped total, while still being able to see the individual records, even
if they are part of the group. If you want to hide the detail records,
follow the Group* directive with a Hide* one using the same value. There
are no command line switches for these keywords. The Group* keywords also
accept an optional label to be displayed instead of the actual value used.
This label should be separated from the value by at least one whitespace
character, such as a space or tab character. If the match string contains
whitespace (spaces or tabs), the string should be quoted, using either
single or double quotes. See the sample configuration file for examples.
GroupReferrer Allows grouping Referrers. Can be handy for some of the
major search engines that have multiple host names a
referral could come from.
GroupURL This keyword allows grouping URLs. Useful for grouping
complete directory trees.
GroupSite This keywords allows grouping Sites. Most used for
grouping top level domains and unresolved IP address
for local dial-ups, etc...
GroupAgent Groups User Agents. A handy example of how you could use
this one is to use "Mozilla" and "MSIE" as the values for
GroupAgent and HideAgent keywords. Make sure you put the
"MSIE" one first.
GroupDomains Allows automatic grouping of domains. The numeric value
represents the level of grouping, and can be thought of
as 'the number of dots' to display. A 1 will display
second level domains only (xxx.xxx), a 2 will display
third level domains (xxx.xxx.xxx) etc... The default
value of 0 disables any domain grouping.
Command line argument: -g
GroupUser Allows grouping of usernames. Combined with a group
name, this can be handy for displaying statistics on
a particular group of users without displaying their
real usernames.
GroupShading Allows shading of table rows for groups. Value can be
'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'yes'.
GroupHighlight Allows bolding of table rows for groups. Value can be
'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'yes'.
Ignore/Include Object Keywords
----------------------
These keywords allow you to completely ignore log records when generating
statistics, or to force their inclusion regardless of ignore criteria.
Records can be ignored or included based on site, URL, user agent, referrer
and username. Be aware that by choosing to ignore records, the accuracy of
the generated statistics become skewed, making it impossible to produce
an accurate representation of load on the web server. These keywords
behave identical to the Hide* keywords above, where the value can have
a leading or trailing wildcard ''. These keywords, like the Hide ones,
have an absolute limit of 80 characters for their values. These keywords
do not have any command line switch counterparts, so they may only be
specified in a configuration file. It should also be pointed out that
using the Ignore/Include combination to selectively exclude an entire
site while including a particular 'chunk' is extremely inefficient,
and should be avoided. Try grep'ing the records into a separate file
and process it instead.
IgnoreSite This allows specified sites to be completely ignored from
the generated statistics.
IgnoreURL This allows specified URLs to be completely ignored from
the generated statistics. One use for this keyword would
be to ignore all hits to a 'temporary' directory where
development work is being done, but is not accessible to
the outside world.
IgnoreReferrer This allows records to be ignored based on the referrer
field.
IgnoreAgent This allows specified User Agent records to be completely
ignored from the statistics. Maybe useful if you really
don't want to see all those hits from MSIE
IgnoreUser This allows specified username records to be completely
ignored from the statistics. Usernames can only be used
if you use http authentication on your server.
IncludeSite Force the record to be processed based on hostname. This
takes precedence over the Ignore* keywords.
IncludeURL Force the record to be processed based on URL. This takes
precedence over the Ignore* keywords.
IncludeReferrer Force the record to be processed based on referrer.
This takes precedence over the Ignore* keywords.
IncludeAgent Force the record to be processed based on user agent.
This takes precedence over the Ignore* keywords.
IncludeUser Force the record to be processed based on username.
Usernames are only available if you use http based
authentication on your server. This takes precedence over
the Ignore* keywords.
Dump Object Keywords
--------------------
The Dump* Keywords allow text files to be generated that can then be used
for import into most database, spreadsheet and other external programs.
The file is a standard tab delimited text file, meaning that each column
is separated by a tab (0x09) character. A header record may be included
if required, using the 'DumpHeader' keyword. Since these files contain
all records that have been processed, including normally hidden records,
an alternate location for the files can be specified using the 'DumpPath'
keyword, otherwise they will be located in the default output directory.
DumpPath Specifies an alternate location for the dump files. The
default output location will be used otherwise. The value
is the path portion to use, and normally should be an
absolute path (ie: has a leading '/' character), however
relative path names can be used as well, and will be
relative to the output directory location.
DumpExtension Allows the dump filename extensions to be specified. The
default extension is "tab", however may be changed with
this option.
DumpHeader Allows a header record to be written as the first record
of the file. Value can be either 'yes' or 'no', with
the default being 'no'.
DumpSites Dump tab delimited sites file. Value can be either 'yes'
or 'no', with the default being 'no'. The filename used
is site_YYYYMM.tab (YYYY=year, MM=month).
DumpURLs Dump tab delimited url file. Value can be either 'yes' or
'no', with the default being 'no'. The filename used is
url_YYYYMM.tab (YYYY=year, MM=month).
DumpReferrers Dump tab delimited referrer file. Value can be either
'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'no'. Filename
used is ref_YYYYMM.tab (YYYY=year, MM=month). Referrer
information is only available if present in the log
file (ie: combined web server log).
DumpAgents Dump tab delimited user agent file. Value can be either
'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'no'. Filename
used is agent_YYYYMM.tab (YYYY=year, MM=month). User
agent information is only available if present in the
log file (ie: combined web server log).
DumpUsers Dump tab delimited username file. Value can be either
'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'no'. Filename
used is user_YYYYMM.tab (YYYY=year, MM=month). The
username data is only available if processing a wu-ftpd
xferlog or http authentication is used on the web server
and that information is present in the log.
DumpSearchStr Dump tab delimited search string file. Value can be
either 'yes' or 'no', with the default being 'no'.
Filename used is search_YYYYMM.tab (YYYY=year, MM=month).
the search string data is only available if referrer
information is present in the log being processed and
recognized search engines were found and processed.
HTML Generation Keywords
------------------------
These keywords allow you to customize the HTML code that The Webalizer
produces, such as adding a corporate logo or links to other web pages.
You can specify as many of these keywords as you like, and they will be
used in the order that they are found in the file. Values cannot exceed
80 characters in length, so you may have to break long lines up into two
or more lines. There are no command line counterparts to these keywords.
HTMLExtension Allows generated pages to use something other than the
default 'html' extension for the filenames. Do not
include the leading period ('.') when you specify the
extension.
Command line argument: -x
HTMLPre Allows code to be inserted at the very beginning of the
HTML files. Defaults to the standard HTML 3.2 DOCTYPE
record. Be careful not to include any HTML here, as it
is inserted before the <HTML> tag in the file. Use it
for server-side scripting capabilities, such as php3, to
insert scripting files and other directives.
HTMLHead Allows you to insert HTML code between the <HEAD></HEAD>
block. There is no default. Useful for adding scripts
to the HTML page, such as Javascript or php3, or even
just for adding a few META tags to the document.
HTMLBody This keyword defines HTML code to be placed immediately
after the <HEAD> section of the report, just before the
title and "summary period/generated on" lines. If used,
the first HTMLHead line MUST include a <BODY> tag. Put
whatever else you want in subsequent lines, but keep in
mind the placement of this code in relation to the title
and other aspects of the web page. Some typical uses
are to change the page colors and possibly add a corporate
logo (graphic) in the top right. If not specified, a
default <BODY> tag is used that defines page color, text
color and link colors (see "sample.conf" file for example).
HTMLPost This keyword defines HTML code that is placed after the
title and "summary period/generated on" lines, just before
the initial horizontal rule <HR> tag. Normally this keyword
isn't needed, but is provided in case you included a large
graphic or some other weird formatting tag in the HTMLHead
section that needs to be cleaned up or terminated before the
main report section.
HTMLTail This keyword defines HTML code that is placed at the bottom
right side of the report. It is inserted in a <TABLE> section
between table data <TD>..</TD> tags, and is top and right
aligned within the table. Normally this keyword is used to
provide a link back to your home page or insert a small
graphic at the bottom right of the page.
HTMLEnd This allows insertion of closing code, at the very end of
the page. The default is to put the closing </BODY> and
</HTML> tags. If specified, you must specify these tags
yourself.
LinkReferrer This specifies if the referrers listed in the top referrer
table should be displayed as plain text, or as a link to the
referrer. Values can be either 'yes' or 'no', with 'no'
being the default.
Graph Color Commands
--------------------
These keywords allow altering the colors used in the various graphs
produced by the Webalizer. The value is specified as a standard HTML
RGB hexdecimal color string, without the leading '#' character. The
value is case insensitive. If not specified, the default color shown
will be used.
ColorHit Color used for 'Hits'. Default is '00805C' (green)
ColorFile Color used for 'Files'. Default is '0040FF' (blue)
ColorSite Color used for 'Sites'. Default is 'FF8000' (orange)
ColorKbyte Color used for 'KBytes'. Default is 'FF0000' (red)
ColorPage Color used for 'Pages'. Default is '00E0FF' (cyan)
ColorVisit Color used for 'Visits'. Default is 'FFFF00' (yellow)
ColorMisc Color used for miscellaneous titles in various 'Top'
tables (not graphs). Default is '00E0FF' (cyan)
PieColor1 Pie Chart color #1. Default is '800080' (purple)
PieColor2 Pie Chart color #2. Default is '80FFC0' (lt. green)
PieColor3 Pie Chart color #3. Default is 'FF00FF' (lt. purple)
PieColor4 Pie Chart color #4. Default is 'FFC080' (tan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes on Web Log Files
----------------------
The Webalizer supports CLF log formats, which should work for just
about everyone. If you want User Agent or Referrer information, you
need to make sure your web server supplies this information in its
log file, and in a format that the Webalizer can understand. While
The Webalizer will try to handle many of the subtle variations in
log formats, some will not work at all. Most web servers output
CLF format logs by default. For Apache, in order to produce the
proper log format, add the following to the httpd.conf file:
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %s %b \"%
Unknown macro: {Referer}
i\" \"%
Unknown macro: {User-agent}
i\""
This instructs the Apache web server to produce a 'combined' log
that includes the referrer and user agent information on the end of
each record, enclosed in quotes (This is the standard recommended
by both Apache and NCSA). Netscape and other web servers have
similar capabilities to alter their log formats. (note: the above
works for apache servers up to V1.2. V1.3 and higher now have additional
ways to specify log formats... refer to included documentation).
Notes on FTP Log Files
----------------------
The Webalizer supports ftp logs produced by wu-ftpd, proftpd and others,
as a standard 'xferlog'. To process an ftp log, you must either use the
-Ff command line option or have "LogType ftp" in your configuration file.
It is recommended that you create a separate configuration file for ftp
analysis, since the values used for your web server will most likely not
be suited for ftp log analysis (ie: page types, hostname, etc.. should
be different).
Because of the difference in web and ftp logs, there are a few limitations:
o Because there is no concept of a 'response code' in ftp world, response
codes are restricted to either 200 (OK) or 206 (Partial Content), based
on the completion status found in xferlog (for wu-ftpd, 'i'=incomplete
and will generate a 206, 'c'=complete and will generate a 200). If your
ftp server doesn't supply the completion status, all requests will be
assigned a response code of 200. This allows the usage graph to display
all transfer requests (hits), and how many of those completed in success
(files - ie: 200 response codes).
o Page totals won't accurately reflect reality, since there isn't really
the concept of a 'page' in regards to ftp services. I have found that
setting the PageType value to "README", "FIRST", etc... seems to work
fairly well however, and will give a pretty good indication of how
many 'non-binary' files were requested. Of course, the content of your
ftp site will be different, so your results may vary.
o Visit totals also won't accurately reflect reality, since visits are
triggered on PageType requests (see above). What you usually wind up
with is visits=sites in most cases.
o Entry/Exit pages will not be calculated for ftp logs.
o For obvious reasons, referrers and user agents are not supported.
o You cannot analyze both web and ftp logs at the same time.. they must
be done separately in different runs.
Notes on Referrers
------------------
Referrers are weird critters... They take many shapes and forms, which makes
it much harder to analyze than a typical URL, which at least has some
standardization. What is contained in the referrer field of your log
files varies depending on many factors, such as what site did the referral,
what type of system it comes from and how the actual referral was generated.
Why is this? Well, because a user can get to your site in many ways... They
may have your site bookmarked in their browser, they may simply type your
sites URL field in their browser, they could have clicked on a link on some
remote web page or they may have found your site from one of the many search
engines and site indexes found on the web. The Webalizer attempts to deal
with all this variation in an intelligent way by doing certain things to
the referrer string which makes it easier to analyze. Of course, if your
web server doesn't provide referrer information, you probably don't really
care and are asking yourself why you are reading this section...
Most referrers will take the form of "http://somesite.com/somepage.html",
which is what you will get if the user clicks on a link somewhere on the
web in order to get to your site. Some will be a variation of this, and
look something like "file:/some/such/sillyname", which is a reference from
a HTML document on the users local machine. Several variations of this can
be used, depending on what type of system the user has, if he/she is on
a local network, the type of network, etc... To complicate things even
more, dynamic HTML documents and HTML documents that are generated by
CGI scripts or external programs produce lots of extra information which
is tacked on to the end of the referrer string in an almost infinite number
of ways. If the user just typed your URL into their browser or clicked on
a bookmark, there won't be any information in the referrer field and will
take the form "-".
In order to handle all these variations, The Webalizer parses the referrer
field in a certain way. First, if the referrer string begins with "http",
it assumes it is a normal referral and converts the "http://" and following
hostname to lowercase in order to simplify hiding if desired. For example,
the referrer "HTTP://WWW.MyHost.Com/This/Is/A/HTML/Document.html" will become
"http://www.myhost.com/This/Is/A/HTML/Document.html". Notice that only the
"http://" and hostname are converted to lower case... The rest of the
referrer field is left alone. This follows standard convention, as the
actual method (HTTP) and hostname are always case insensitive, while the
document name portion is case sensitive.
Referrers that came from search engines, dynamic HTML documents, CGI
scripts and other external programs usually tack on additional information
that it used to create the page. A common example of this can be found
in referrals that come from search engines and site indexes common on the
web. Sometimes, these referrers URLs can be several hundred characters
long and include all the information that the user typed in to search for
your site. The Webalizer deals with this type of referrer by stripping
off all the query information, which starts with a question mark '?'.
The Referrer "http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=usa%26global%26link" will
be converted to just "http://search.yahoo.com/search".
When a user comes to your site by using one of their bookmarks or by
typing in your URL directly into their browser, the referrer field is
blank, and looks like "-". Most sites will get more of these referrals
than any other type. The Webalizer converts this type of referral into
the string "- (Direct Request)". This is done in order to make it easier
to hide via a command line option or configuration file option. This is
because the character "-" is a valid character elsewhere in a referrer
field, and if not turned into something unique, could not be hidden without
possibly hiding other referrers that shouldn't be.
Notes on Character Escaping
---------------------------
The HTTP protocol defines certain ways that URLs can look and behave. To
some extent, referrer fields follow most of the same conventions. Character
escaping is a technique by which non-printable or other non-ASCII (and even
some ASCII) characters can be used in a URL. This is done by placing the
Hexadecimal value of the character in the URL, preceded by a percent sign '%'.
Since Hex values are made up of ASCII characters, any character can be
escaped to ensure only printable ASCII characters are present in the URL.
Some systems take this concept to the extreme and escape all sorts of stuff,
even characters that don't need to be escaped. To deal with this, The
Webalizer will un-escape URLs and referrers before being processed. For
Example, the URL "/www.webalizer.org/%7Efoo/bar.html" is the same URL as
"/www.webalizer.org/~foo/bar.html", a very common form of a URL to access
users web pages. If the URLs were not un-escaped, they would be treated as
two separate documents, even though they are really one and the same.
Search String Analysis
----------------------
The Webalizer will do a minimal analysis on referrer strings that
it finds, looking for well known search string patterns. Most of
the major search engines are supported, such as Yahoo!, Altavista,
Lycos, etc... Unfortunately, search engines are always changing
their internal/CGI query formats, new search engines are coming on
line every day, and the ability to detect all search strings is
nearly impossible. However, it should be accurate enough to give
a good indication of what users were searching for when they stumbled
across your site. Note: as of version 1.31, search engines can now
be specified within a configuration file. See the sample.conf file
for examples of how to specify additional search engines.
Notes on Visits/Entry/Exit Figures
----------------------------------
The majority of data analyzed and reported on by The Webalizer is
as accurate and correct as possible based on the input log file.
However, due to the limitation of the HTTP protocol, the use of
firewalls, proxy servers, multi-user systems, the rotation of your
log files, and a myriad of other conditions, some of these numbers
cannot, without absolute accuracy, be calculated. In particular,
Visits, Entry Pages and Exit Pages are suspect to random errors
due to the above and other conditions. The reason for this is
twofold, 1) Log files are finite in size and time interval, and
2) There is no way to distinguish multiple individual users apart
given only an IP address. Because log files are finite, they have
a beginning and ending, which can be represented as a fixed time
period. There is no way of knowing what happened previous to this
time period, nor is it possible to predict future events based on
it. Also, because it is impossible to distinguish individual users
apart, multiple users that have the same IP address all appear to
be a single user, and are treated as such. This is most common where
corporate users sit behind a proxy/firewall to the outside world,
and all requests appear to come from the same location (the address
of the proxy/firewall itself). Dynamic IP assignment (used with
dial-up Internet accounts) also present a problem, since the same
user will appear as to come from multiple places.
For example, suppose two users visit your server from XYZ company,
which has their network connected to the Internet by a proxy server
'fw.xyz.com'. All requests from the network look as though they
originated from 'fw.xyz.com', even though they were really initiated
from two separate users on different PCs. The Webalizer would
see these requests as from the same location, and would record only
1 visit, when in reality, there were two. Because entry and exit
pages are calculated in conjunction with visits, this situation
would also only record 1 entry and 1 exit page, when in reality,
there should be 2.
As another example, say a single user at XYZ company is surfing
around your website.. They arrive at 11:52pm the last day of
the month, and continue surfing until 12:30am, which is now a
new day (in a new month). Since a common practice is to rotate
(save then clear) the server logs at the end of the month, you
now have the users visit logged in two different files (current
and previous months). Because of this (and the fact that the
Webalizer clears history between months), the first page the
user requests after midnight will be counted as an entry page.
This is unavoidable, since it is the first request seen by that
particular IP address in the new month.
For the most part, the numbers shown for visits, entry and exit
pages are pretty good 'guesses', even though they may not be 100%
accurate. They do provide a good indication of overall trends,
and shouldn't be that far off from the real numbers to count much.
You should probably consider them as the 'minimum' amount possible,
since the actual (real) values should always be equal or greater
in all cases.
Exporting Webalizer Data
------------------------
The Webalizer now has the ability to dump all object tables to tab
delimited ASCII text files, which can then be imported into most
popular database and spreadsheet programs. The files are not normally
produced, as on some sites they could become quite large, and are only
enabled by the use of the Dump* configuration keywords. The filename
extensions default to '.tab' however may be changed using the
'DumpExtension' keyword. Since this data contains all items, even
those normally hidden, it may not be desirable to have them located
in the output directory where they may be visible to normal web users..
For this reason, the 'DumpPath' configuration keyword is available,
and allows the placement of these files somewhere outside the normal
web server document tree. An optional 'header' record may be written
to these files as well, and is useful when the data is to be imported
into a spreadsheet.. databases will not normally need the header. If
enabled, the header is simply the column names as the first record of
the file, tab separated.
Log files and The Webalizer
---------------------------
Most sites will choose to have The Webalizer run from cron at specified
intervals. Care should be taken to ensure that data is not lost as a
result of log file rotations. A suggested practice is to rotate your
web server logs at the end of each month as close to midnight as possible,
then have The Webalizer process the 'end of month' log file before running
statistics on the new, current log. On our systems, a shell script called
'rotate_logs' is run at midnight, the end of each month. This script file
looks like:
------------------------- file: rotate_logs ------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
- halt the server
kill `cat /var/lib/httpd/logs/httpd.pid`
- define backup names
OLD_ACCESS_LOG=/var/lib/httpd/logs/old/access_log.`date +%y%m%d-%H%M%S`
OLD_ERROR_LOG=/var/lib/httpd/logs/old/error_log.`date +%y%m%d-%H%M%S`
- make end of month copy for analyzer
cp /var/lib/httpd/logs/access_log /var/lib/httpd/logs/access_log.backup
- move files to archive directory
mv /var/lib/httpd/logs/access_log `echo $OLD_ACCESS_LOG`
mv /var/lib/httpd/logs/error_log `echo $OLD_ERROR_LOG`
- restart web server
/usr/sbin/httpd
- compress the archived files
/bin/gzip $OLD_ACCESS_LOG
/bin/gzip $OLD_ERROR_LOG-
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This script first stops the web server using a 'kill' command. Apache
keeps the PID of the server in the file httpd.pid, so we use it as the
argument for the kill. Next, it defines some names for the backup files,
which are basically the name of the files with the date and time appended
to the end of them. It then makes a copy of the log file, appended with
'.backup' in the log directory, moves the current log files to an archive
directory (/var/lib/httpd/logs/old) and restarts the server. This setup
allows the web server to be down for the minimum amount of time needed,
which is important for busy sites. If you don't want to stop the server,
you can remove the initial 'kill' command, and replace the '/usr/sbin/httpd'
line with "kill -1 `cat /var/lib/httpd/logs/httpd.pid`" command instead,
On most web servers, this will cause a restart of the server and create
the new log files in the process...
At this point, we have made copies of the previous months logs, the web
server is going about its business as usual, and we have all the time in
the world to do any other additional processing we want. The last two
lines of the script compress the archived logs using the GNU zip program
(gzip). Remember, we still have a copy of the log which we can now run
The Webalizer on without having to do any further processing.
Next, we define two crontab entries. The first runs the above 'rotate_logs'
script at midnight at the end of the month. The second runs The Webalizer
on the '.backup' log file created above at 5 minutes after midnight. This
gives other end of month processing jobs a chance to run so we don't bog
the system down too much. If you have lots of end of month stuff going on,
you can change the timing to suit your needs. The crontab entries look
something like:
------------------------- crontab entries --------------------------------
- Rotate web server logs and run monthly analysis
0 0 1 * * /usr/local/adm/rotate_logs
5 0 1 * * /usr/bin/webalizer -Q /var/lib/httpd/logs/access_log.backup-
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As you can see, the log rotations occur at midnight, and the analysis
is done at 5 minutes after. Once you verify that The Webalizer ran
successfully, the access_log.backup file can be deleted as it isn't
needed any more. If you need to re-run the analysis, you still have
the compressed archive copy that the shell script created. In order
for the above analysis to work properly, you should have already
created an /etc/webalizer.conf configuration file suitable for your
site, or otherwise specify configuration options or a configuration
file on the crontab command line above.
If you want The Webalizer to be run more often than once a month, you
can specify additional crontab entries to do this as well. Care should
be taken however to ensure that The Webalizer is not running when the
end of month processing above occurs, or unpredictable results may
happen (such as an inability to rotate the logs due to a file lock).
The easiest way is to run it on the half hour with a crontab entry like:
30 * * * * /usr/bin/webalizer
Reverse DNS Lookups
-------------------
The Webalizer fully supports both IPv4 and IPv6 DNS lookups, and
maintains a cache of those lookups to reduce processing the same
addresses in subsequent runs. The cache file can be created at
run-time, or may be created before running the webalizer using either
the stand alone 'webazolver' program, or The Webalizer (DNS) Cache
file Manager program 'wcmgr'. In order to perform reverse lookups,
a DNS Cache file must be specified, either on the command line or in
a configuration file. In order to create/update the cache file at
run-time, the number of DNS Children must also be specified, and can
be anything between 1 and 100. This specifies the number of child
processes to be forked, each of which will perform network DNS
queries in order to lookup up the addresses and update the cache.
Cached entries that are older than a specified TTL (time to live)
will be expired, and if encountered again in a log, will be looked
up at that time in order to 'freshen' them (verify the name is still
the same and update its timestamp). The default TTL is 7 days, however
may be set to anything between 1 and 100 days. Using the 'wcmgr'
program, entries may also be marked as 'permanent', in which case
they will persist (with an infinite TTL) in the cache until manually
removed. See the file DNS.README for additional information.
Geolocation Lookups
-------------------
The Webalizer has the ability to perform geolocation lookups on IP
addresses using either it's own internal GeoDB database or optionally
the GeoIP database from MaxMind, Inc. (www.maxmind.com). If used,
unresolved addresses will be searched for in the database and it's
country of origin will be returned if found. This actually produces
more accurate Country information than DNS lookups, since the DNS
address space has additional gcTLDs that do not necessarily map to
a specific country (such as '.net' and '.com'). It is possible to
use both DNS lookups and geolocation lookups at the same time, which
will cause any addresses that could not be resolved using DNS lookups
to then be looked up in the database, greatly reducing the number of
'Unknown/Unresolved' entries in the generated reports. The native
GeoDB geolocation database provided by The Webalizer fully supports
IPv4 and IPv6 lookups, is updated regularly, and is the preferred
geolocation method for use with The Webalizer. The most current
version of the database can be obtained from our ftp site.
Language Support
----------------
Version 1.0x of The Webalizer added language support. This
support is only provided at compile time in the form of an
include file containing all the strings used by The Webalizer.
The source distribution contains all language files that were
available at the time, with English being the default as
that is the only human language I speak fluently, and me
Espanol es muy malo. Several people have already indicated
the desire to do translations into various languages, and as
I receive the language files, will make them available via
ftp at ftp://ftp.mrunix.net/pub/webalizer/lang
. Unless there
happens to be a binary distribution in the language you need,
you will need to grab the source distribution and compile the
program yourself. See the file INSTALL that comes in the source
distribution for information on how to use a language other than
English.
It should also be noted that the GD graphics library, used to
produce the in-line graphics in the output HTML, doesn't
support extended character sets, so if you are translating
the language file, you will no doubt encounter this problem.
New: You can now specify the language to use when you are building
program from source, using the configure script. Just add
--with-language=language_name , where 'language_name' is the
name of a valid language file in the /lang/ directory. For
example, --with-language=french will build using French as
the default language. You should consult the INSTALL file
for additional information on building the program from source.
Known Issues
------------
o Memory Usage. The Webalizer makes liberal use of memory for internal
data structures during analysis. Lack of real physical memory will
noticeably degrade performance by doing lots of swapping between memory
and disk. One user who had a rather large log file noticed that The
Webalizer took over 7 hours to run with only 16 Meg of memory. Once
memory was increased, the time was reduced to a few minutes.
o Performance. The Hide*, Group*, Ignore*, Include* and IndexAlias
configuration options can cause a performance decrease if lots of
them are used. The reason for this is that every log record must
be scanned for each item in each list. For example, if you are
Hiding 20 objects, Grouping 20 more, and Ignoring 5, each record
is scanned, at most, 46 times (20+20+5 + an IndexAlias scan).
On really large log files, this can have a profound impact. It
is recommended that you use the least amount of these configuration
options that you can, as it will greatly improve performance.
Final Notes
-----------
A lot of time and effort went into making The Webalizer, and to ensure that
the results are as accurate as possible. If you find any abnormalities or
inconsistent results, bugs, errors, omissions or anything else that doesn't
look right, please let me know so I can investigate the problem or correct
the error. This goes for the minimal documentation as well. Suggestions
for future versions are also welcome and appreciated.