HOWTO install AWStats on Opalstack

sean

AWStats is a log analyzer that can generate statistics and charts from your site access logs.

Here's how to install it on Opalstack:

Create a new PHP+Apache app for to host AWStats and make a note of the app name. Be sure to use the same shell user that owns the site you want to track.
Attach the app to a site. You can serve AWStats from its own site, or on a sub-URI as an additional app route on an existing site.

SSH to your app's shell user and run the following commands to download and extract AWStats into the app directory:

cd ~/apps/appname
wget https://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/awstats/awstats-7.8.tar.gz
tar zxf awstats-7.8.tar.gz --strip 1
cp wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.model.conf wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.conf
mkdir data
touch .htaccess awstats_cron
chmod 700 awstats_cron

Edit ~/apps/appname/awstats_cron to make it like this:

#!/bin/bash

# change these to your site and stats app names
SITE=sitename
STATSAPP=appname

# no need to edit further
APPDIR=$HOME/apps/$STATSAPP
LOGDIR=$HOME/logs/sites/$SITE
TODAY=$( date '+%Y%m%d' )
LOG="$LOGDIR/access.log-$TODAY.gz"

echo "processing $LOG"

cd $APPDIR
$APPDIR/tools/logresolvemerge.pl $LOG > $APPDIR/data/log
$APPDIR/wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.pl -config=awstats -u

Edit ~/apps/appname/.htaccess to make it like this:

AddHandler cgi-script .pl

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-SSL} !on
RewriteRule ^$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}cgi-bin/awstats.pl [R,L]
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-SSL} on
RewriteRule ^$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}cgi-bin/awstats.pl [R,L]

# If you are serving AWStats on the root of its own site:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/wwwroot/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /wwwroot/$1 [P,L]

# If you are serving stats from a sub-URL then replace the 2 lines above
# with these (using `/stats` as the example URI here)
# RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/stats/wwwroot/
# RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /stats/wwwroot/$1 [P,L]

Edit ~/apps/appname/wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.conf to set the following variables:
- LogFile="/home/shelluser/apps/appname/data/log" - replace shelluser and appname with your own.
- SiteDomain="domain.com" - replace domain.com with the domain of the site you are tracking
- DirIcons="../icon"

Run the awstats_cron script to get your initial data:

~/apps/appname/awstats_cron

Run crontab -e to make a cron job to keep awstats updated. Daily log rotation runs between 0300 and 0400 daily, so be sure to schedule it some time after 0400:

# update awstats at 0500 UTC daily
0 5 * * * ~/apps/appname/awstats_cron

You're done! Your AWStats should now be available at the site you set up in step 2 above.

fwkit

it seems this step:
Edit ~/apps/appname/cron to make it like this
must be:
Edit ~/apps/appname/awstats_cron to make it like this

and this file:
LogFile="/home/shelluser/apps/appname/data/log"
first must be created by user

sean

fwkit Edit ~/apps/appname/awstats_cron to make it like this

Fixed, thank you.

fwkit and this file:
LogFile="/home/shelluser/apps/appname/data/log"
first must be created by user

No. The file will be created when you run ~/apps/appname/awstats_cron in step 7.

fwkit It works for my wp site:
LogFile="/home/shelluser/logs/apps/appname/apache_access.txt"

Please go back to the original configuration LogFile="/home/shelluser/apps/appname/data/log" - your stats app will be missing data if you do not.

fwkit

It works for my wp site:
LogFile="/home/shelluser/logs/apps/appname/apache_access.txt"

fwkit

No, it is not. Be sure, I tried but file data/log is not created.
~/apps/_stats_app_/awstats_cron Create/Update database for config "/home/_shelluser_/apps/_stats_app_/wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.conf" by AWStats version 7.8 (build 20200416) From data in log file "/home/_shelluser_/apps/_stats_app_/data/log"... Error: Couldn't open server log file "/home/_shelluser_/apps/_stats_app_/data/log" : No such file or directory Setup ('/home/_shelluser_/apps/_stats_app_/wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.conf' file, web server or permissions) may be wrong. Check config file, permissions and AWStats documentation (in 'docs' directory).

fwkit

Perhaps this line from awstats_cron must be replaced
$APPDIR/tools/logresolvemerge.pl $LOG $LOG-$( date '+%Y%m%d' ).gz > $APPDIR/data.log 2>/dev/null
to this:
$APPDIR/tools/logresolvemerge.pl $LOG $LOG-$( date '+%Y%m%d' ).gz > $APPDIR/data/log 2>/dev/null

Then it will work

sean

fwkit fixed, thank you.

tsutton

Just set it up, all good. Thank you!

Bonus if Awstats comes with password protection - shame it doesn't have it. I'll find a way to protect this from public eyes.

sean

tsutton you can use this procedure for password protection: Password Protection for PHP Applications

tsutton

sean Perfect, all sorted. Thanks again.

Hodson

Thanks for this tutorial!

I believe there is a slight mistake in step 6. You forgot to include appname in the path for the awstats.conf file.

Also, is it possible to get GeoIP setup with this so we can see from which countries hits are from? I tried to get GeoIP working with GoAccess last week but didn't have any luck 🙁 I'm a bit of a noob to this kind of stuff.

sean

Hodson step 6 fixed, thanks for catching that.

I'll try to sort out GeoIP and will follow up here when I do.

sean

Hodson is it possible to get GeoIP setup with this so we can see from which countries hits are from?

I was able to get GeoIP working with the following steps:

Register for an account at maxmind.com.
Download the MaxMind GeoLite2 City and Country databases (binary mmdb, not CSV) from your MaxMind account and upload them to your AWStats app's shell user account. I used the GeoLite2 databases because they are free, but if you have a paid account then you can use the full GeoIP2 databases.

Edit your app's awstats.conf to enable the related plugins. The sections should already be present, you only need to uncomment the LoadPlugin lines for GeoIP2 City and Country and specify the path to your Maxmind DBs, eg:

LoadPlugin="geoip2_city /home/user/apps/stats/GeoLite2-City.mmdb"
...
LoadPlugin="geoip2_country /home/user/apps/stats/GeoLite2-Country.mmdb"

Test it by running ~/apps/appname/awstats_cron and then check your stats.

tsutton

Is anyone having issue with getting the data to appear for

Keywords used on search engines
Keyphrases used on search engines

Mine shows up as zero

sean

tsutton do you have entries in your site access logs (eg ~/logs/sites/sitename/access.txt) that show search engine keywords in the referring URLs? Most search engines (including Google) scrub them before handing the request off to your site.

nhughes

sean I am trying to get GeoIP working as per these instructions. However, when I run ~/apps/appname/awstats_cron I get the error Can't locate Data/Validate/IP.pm in @INC and Compilation failed in require (path to)/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.conf. Do I (or you) need to install the "data::Validate::IP" Pearl module? Or am I missing a important step?

kylotan

If you get an error in step 7, it's because there's a double quote missing from the end of line 11 in step 4. 🙂

sean

kylotan thanks for the assist 🙂

igor

sean Did you guys switch to .log extension instead of .txt? I just opened log folders of couple of my apps and .txt files have 0B size, while now there are .log files and they contain data...

I did change some apps (can't remember if they are the same ones) to PHP 8.1, could that be the reason?

sean

igor Yes, the system was changed to use ".log" for all web server logging. The change becomes effective for existing sites after any update to the site is saved.

igor

So .log extension is here to stay? I can update LOG="$LOGDIR/access.txt-$TODAY.gz" to access.log and not worry it will be changed again to txt?

sean

igor Correct, the extension won't be changing again.