AWStats on Apache

If you’ve ever seen an Apache log file, you’ll notice that it’s rather long to read. It’s not that the log is hard to read, it’s just full of a lot of useless information. If you view a website with a browser, the log will show that you connect and retrieve every single file (images are included). Ouch.

I installed Debian 5.0 Server on an HP DL380 G4 server. I then did all the updates etc. I’m assuming you know how to install apache and how to “su” to root.

apt-get install awstats
nano /etc/apache2/awstats.conf
This creates a new file called awstats.conf

Alias /awstatsclasses “/usr/share/awstats/lib/”
Alias /awstats-icon/ “/usr/share/awstats/icon/”
Alias /awstatscss “/usr/share/doc/awstats/examples/css”
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
ScriptAlias /awstats/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
Options ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch

Save this file and exit back to the shell.

nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Add this to the end of the conf file:

Include /etc/apache2/awstats.conf

Save and exit apache.conf.

apache2ctl restart

cd /etc/awstats
cp awstats.conf awstats.www.mysite.org.conf
nano awstats.www.mysite.org.conf

Search for and edit the following:

LogFile=”/var/log/apache2/access.log”
SiteDomain=”mysite.org”

Save the file and exit to the shell.

Now we need to run the script to parse the log files into a stats page:
perl /usr/lib/cgi-bin/awstats.pl -update -config=www.mysite.org

If it fails due to permissions:
chmod -R 777 /var/log/apache2
Then re-run the script

Now check your stats at http://www.mysite.org/awstats/awstats.pl

As long as everything went to plan, the script should also automatically install a cron job to update the stats every 10 minutes.

You can find out by typing the following:
dpkg -L awstats | grep cron
Which shows the following:

/etc/cron.d
/etc/cron.d/awstats

If you nano the awstats cron, you can edit the times and locations of the scripts.

EDIT!!!

If you’re using virtual hosts (like I am) and you want each site to have its own stats:

Edit your sites-available default:
nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

Add the following in your VirtualHost:

NameVirtualHost 192.168.1.4

DocumentRoot “/var/www/web123”
ServerName web123.com
ServerAlias *.web123.com
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/web123.com.log combined

Then you’ll have to create the awstats.web123.com.conf file in /etc/awstats
cp /etc/awstats/awstats.conf /etc/awstats/awstats.web123.com.conf
nano /etc/awstats/awstats.web123.com.conf

Change the following:

LogFile=”/var/log/apache2/web123.com.log”
LogFormat=1
SiteDomain=”web123.com”
HostAliases=”web123.com www.web123.com localhost 127.0.0.1″

This will allow you to use the browser to update the stats if your CRON job is set for long periods of time:

AllowToUpdateStatsFromBrowser=1

And I set this up because I have apache do a DNS lookup on its own:

DNSLookup=0

Then restart apache:
apache2ctl restart

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