Clarification on Creating an App for AWStats

Van

I'm following sean's tutorial on installing AWStats. The tutorial states to create an PHP+Apache app. However, there are two types of PHP+Apache apps: PHP-CGI with Apache and PHP Apache Symlink. Which type should you use?

anjanesh

Van PHP-CGI with Apache

This one.

Though, AWStats is decades old - umami is a good alternative based on JavaScript.

Van

anjanesh based on JavaScript Well, that could potentially be an issue if a visitor has Javascript disabled in their browser.

Van

Thank you anjanesh. AWStats may be old, but it works and I like the stats it provides. I will checkout umami though. Thank you for the suggestion.

Edit: I just checked out umami. One thing that it doesn't provide is the IP addresses of visitors, which is useful info to have if you have someone attempting to hack your site or sending you spam via comments or your contact form.

Van

I've began going through the process of installing AWStats. I have another question regarding step 8, part of which reads:

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

Is the above something you add to the awstats.cron file or is it a command you type on the command line while in the SSH shell? Is the correct format 0 space 5 space asterisk space asterisk space asterisk space ~/apps/appname/awstats_cron?

sean

Van first you run crontab -e which opens a text editor with the current contents of your crontab (ie the schedule for your cron jobs).

Once the editor is open then you add the two lines:

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

The format is indeed 0 space 5 space asterisk space asterisk space asterisk space ~/apps/appname/awstats_cron.

Once you've entered those two lines, save and exit the editor and step 8 will be complete.

Van

sean

first you run crontab -e which opens a text editor

Oh, now I get it. I'm not familiar with using crontab, hence my ignorance. Thank you for clarifying the format.

Van

Okay, getting closer...

I'm getting the following errors when I run awstats.cron:

apps/site_apps/awstats/data/awstats_cron: line 19: /home/shelluser/apps/site_apps/awstats/tools/logresolvemerge.pl: Permission denied apps/site_apps/awstats/data/awstats_cron: line 20: /home/shelluser/apps/site_apps/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.pl: Permission denied

Permissions for logresolvemerge.pl and awstats.pl: 664 (-rw-rw-r--)

Should the permissions for the above be set to 700?

sean

Van The permissions should be:

700 for all of the *.pl scripts
711 for the parent directory containing the scripts

Van

sean Thank you. Tutorial needs to be updated.

sean

Van I'll make a pass through the procedure and will update where needed.

Van

I ran into another problem. I ran the crontab -e command and I get a screen that appears to be uneditable. I'm not able to type anything or move around in the screen.

I attempted to setup an environment where I could use nano instead of vim to use with crontab, but I don't have privileges to do that. Command used:

crontab -u shelluser -e

I don't use vim, I don't understand it, and I don't want to learn how to use it just to use crontab -e.

sean

Van if you want to use nano to edit your crontab then you can set your EDITOR environment variable for the command like so:

EDITOR=nano crontab -e

Hope this helps 🙂

Van

sean After my prior post, I continued looking through the search results I had for using nano to edit crontab and came across the following command that worked:

export VISUAL=nano; crontab -e

sean

Van that will work too. The difference is that when using export the variable will be site for your entire shell session instead of for a single command.

Van

This has turned into quite a whack-a-mole experience. My site: https://apps.mysite.com. My folder structure for AWStats: /home/shelluser/apps/apps_mysite/awstats.

So, I attempt to access my site via a web browser and I get a File not found error. I then try a different address, https://apps.mysite.com/awstats and I get a Permission denied error.

What am I doing wrong? I should be getting prompted to enter my username and password since I password protected my apps area per the user guide. What I entered for the AuthName part of the required entry for the AWStats .htaccess file: apps_mysite

sean

Van please email Opalstack support with the details of your setup so that we can look into it.