AWStats

AWStats is a free web analytics software. It is used for the analysis of log files to create the Web server based on visitor requests. AWStats generates reports as HTML pages that can be viewed with a browser and can be linked, for example, directly from from the website in this way.

Background

The script can handle logs of web, mail and FTP servers. It was written in the Perl programming language and is distributed under the GNU General Public License.

AWStats supports most major web server log formats such as Apache ( NCSA combined / XLF / ELF log format or common / CLF log file format ), WebStar, IIS (W3C log file format, ) and many more. It generates from the log files a graphical and text-based statistics, which are not directly generated image files, but the graphics are simulated using HTML tables and CSS constructs.

Because AWStats exclusively based on Perl and a few CPAN modules required for running, it is supportive to each operating system Perl executable.

Operation

AWStats is regularly, usually daily, called ( eg automated by a cron job ). Each call AWStats flies over the existing statistics on the basis of a cache which log lines have already been analyzed. Then it analyzed newly added log messages and adds them to its database, add and update the HTML summaries. Depending on the configuration AWStats can display after evaluation in a bar chart, at what time a call was made, how much data has been transferred, which browser version was used, from which computer and the address from which the visitor came from. Together with all other log lines emerge as meaningful results.

Application

AWStats can be operated in two different modes: either as a background program or as a CGI program (or with the help of mod_perl ).

In the former mode AWStats generates static HTML files after a single call. This does AWStats principle also in the second variant, but additionally come extra features that allow for individual inquiries from visitors, such as an overview of the browser used between March 2007 and April 2009. This analysis data is then generated immediately upon request. This inevitably leads to a higher server load than the pure display of static files.

Configuration and extensions

AWStats is adjusted by a fully documented configuration file which is a simple syntax of the form

# comment Property = "value" Other property = "value" served. In addition, AWStats is by so-called "extra sections" extensible. These are short pieces of code that make it possible to create specific statistics.

Alternatives

As a competitive free program with approximately the same extent is often called Webalizer.