Install Awstats on Ubuntu

Tested with Ubuntu server 8.04 (Hardy Heron).

sudo aptitude install awstats

To see the country of your visitors (not required)

sudo aptitude install libnet-ip-perl
sudo aptitude install libgeo-ipfree-perl

Let's assume you want to analyze the Apache 2 log file of your website “toto.com” (It can be just an IP address).

Create configuration file

sudo cp /etc/awstats/awstats.conf /etc/awstats/awstats.toto.com.conf

Update these parameters

# apache2
LogFile="/var/log/apache2/access.log"

# domain name
SiteDomain="toto.com"
HostAliases="localhost 127.0.0.1 toto.com"

LogFormat=1

You can also activate these plugins

LoadPlugin="tooltips
LoadPlugin="geoipfree"

sudo /usr/lib/cgi-bin/awstats.pl -config=toto.com -update

You should get something like this

Create/Update database for config "/etc/awstats/awstats.toto.com.conf" by AWStats version 6.7 (build 1.892)
From data in log file "/var/log/apache2/access.log"...
Phase 1 : First bypass old records, searching new record...
Searching new records from beginning of log file...
Phase 2 : Now process new records (Flush history on disk after 20000 hosts)...
Jumped lines in file: 0
Parsed lines in file: 191338
 Found 0 dropped records,
 Found 24 corrupted records,
 Found 0 old records,
 Found 191314 new qualified records.

Create /etc/apache2/conf.d/statistics

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 /statistics/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
Options ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch

Restart Apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

View your statistics

• http://toto.com/statistics/awstats.pl

or (in case you have more than one config file)

• http://toto.com/statistics/awstats.pl?config=toto.com

In /etc/crontab add

# update every 10 min
*/10 * * * * root /usr/lib/cgi-bin/awstats.pl -config=toto.com -update > /dev/null

Just delete the files in /var/lib/awtstats (directory defined by DirData parameter)

sudo su - root
cd /var/lib/awstats
rm *
logout

Notes

• you have to be root because for some reason, sudo rm -R awstats/* wouldn't work.
• if you get the message Never updated (See 'Build/Update' on awstats_setup.html page) whereas the awstats files are there in /var/lib/awtstats, it's probably a permission problem on this folder.

Source: http://awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_faq.html#RESET

awstats "Error: SiteDomain parameter not defined in your config/domain file. You must edit it for using this version of AWStats. "

Try to this URL (with your values): http://toto.com/statistics/awstats.pl?config=toto.com

• http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2008/01/16/configuring-awstats-on-ubuntu-server/
• http://www.mneylon.com/blog/archives/2005/08/03/configuring-awstats-with-apache-2-on-ubuntu/
• http://awstats.sourceforge.net/
• http://awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_faq.html