How to Install and Use Your Own Webalizer

If stats are important to you or you want to share them, you can install your own copy of Webalizer on your computer. Unfortunately, the instructions that come with it are written for Linux/Unix systems and not for Windows, even in the Windows install!

1. Download a copy of Webalizer at http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/download.html Get the Binary distribution for Win32.

2. Unzip it to a folder on your hard drive such as x:\webalizer where x is the drive designation.

3. In a text editor or, better yet, a proper file editor such as tswebeditor , open the sample.conf file. Click on File, Save As, and save it as webalizer.conf. This is the name Webalizer will be looking for when it runs.

4. Now browse through the file. All the variables have been commented out with a “#” and there are full explanations preceding them. You will want to uncomment most of the variables and make changes where necessary.

Read the explanations. Be sure not to uncomment the explanations.

For testing purposes, you may wish to download a raw log file into your webalizer folder and set LogFile in line 28 to the name of it. You should comment it out when done.

OutputDir in line 42 should be set to a subdirectory of the webalizer directory or to some other folder such as c:/webalizer/output or c:/mysitestats

HostName in line 94 should be set to your domain name.

PageType in lines 108-112 are fine by default but you may want to add .php as a type.

DNSCache in line 131 should not be uncommented if running webalizer in Windows. It only works with Linux/Unix. You won’t be able to resolve countries because of this.

GMTTime in line 221 may be changed to yes if you prefer GMT time.

VisitTimeout in line 252 may be changed if you wish. The default is fine too.

IndexAlias on lines 253 and 254, be careful about adding to these or even uncommenting them. They will slow webalizer down.

Hide* , the Hide commands can be used to tailor your reports and eliminate various items or group them together. You will have to play with these to get what you want.

MangleAgents on line 512 may be changed if you really care what browser they used. You should change it to something above 0.

DumpPath in line 545 leave commented out to send the output to the output file you specified instead.

DumpExtension in line 561 should be changed to csv if you might want to use Excel to look at the results.

Dump* in lines 566-571 may be changed to yes to dump for Excel. Not necessary otherwise.

5. Test your installation. Run webalizer.exe. If you don’t get any errors and you get output, congratulations! If you do get errors, check your conf file again.

6. Now you will want to comment out LogFile in line 28 again.

7. Download your raw access files to the webalizer folder.

8. To run Webalizer, go to Start, Run and type in path\webalizer.exe filename.gz

ie c:\webalizer\webalizer.exe mysite.com-may-2004.gz

Be sure to move the output to another folder or subfolder to keep it.

This could all be automated with a simple batch file:

@echo off
echo LIST of STATS (.gz) FILES
echo.
for %%A in (*.gz) do echo %%A
echo.
echo.
set /p file=ENTER FILE NAME(I.E. mysite.com-month-year.gz)
c:\webalizer\webalizer.exe %file%

Pause

:Begin
@echo off
set /p folder=ENTER THE STATS FOLDER NAME(I.E. May2004)

:Process
cd c:\webalizer
md c:\webalizer\%folder%
move c:\webalizer\output\*.* c:\webalizer\%folder%

:End

Copy and paste it in a text editor like Notepad (NOT a word processor like Word) and edit the paths. Save it to a file in your webalizer folder. Name it what you please as long as it ends in .bat such as "stats.bat". The :labels are included in case you are feeling adventurous and want to add error checking.

HINT: If you want to share stats with someone else such as a customer, you can upload the output folder to your account under public_html and have them browse to it. It works like any other web page. You can password protect the folder with Web Protect in Cpanel if you wish. You could also design a custom Excel file using dumps to show off the stats since this would be easy to email. Or you can zip up the output folder and attach to an email.

Katrina

I have followed these instructions, but have apparantely missed something as I am confused.........

I have renamed the config file, gone through it and uncommented most items, left most settings at default and unzipped the webalizer to a directory called c:/webalizer on my computer.  I have also downloaded a raw access file and saved it in a directory called logtest (on a side note, has anyone had troubles downloading the raw access file using IE7.......I get an error and have had to use Firefox)

When I go to Start Run and type in c:\webalizer\webalizer.exe logtest\accesslog_albertaga.net_2_25_2007.gz   I get a quick black box flashing on my screen and it then dissappears.

Any ideas what I have missed in this process

Ken

I have tried to do this through the command prompt

This is what i then get.......have i made a major error in the setup of this program.  Basically, I want to be able to see the stats for my site..........is it a tough process to see these on a regular basis.

Here is what I get.....

c:\webalizer>webalizer.exe  logtest/accesslog_albertaga.net_2_25_2007.gz
Webalizer V2.01-10 (CYGWIN_NT-5.1  1.3.10 <0.51/3/2>>English
Using logfile logtest/accesslog_2_25_2007.gz (gzip-clf)
Error: Can't change directory to c:/webalizer/albertagastats

I have also tried to move the access log into the webalizer directory and get the same error (except the logtest directory)

Any hints where i have erred in trying to get this working

Ken   

I have got this to the point that if I specify a log file in the webalizer.conf file it will go throught the process and it then says 1128 records (1182 ignored) in 0.2 seconds  and then ends the process.

Is this normal, or is it an error of some sort?  If I then turn off that command in the file, and just type in webalizer.exe it goes to the process of reading the history file, from the right location but just stays there for a loooonnnnggg time, without ever completing the process.

Is this an error?

What should I be doing differently to get some stats?  Once I get the stats working, then I can try to make an automated process.......but first to get some stats would be nice.

thanks for any suggestions.!!

Ken

I have given up on this process and have successfully installed AW Stas and have it working properly and giving me the stats for my site.

Thanks for all the help

Ken

Yes, I prefer AWStats as well but good tutorial nevertheless! Http-Analyze is a good little program as well.

Each day after your server does a stats run, your raw log file is deleted.  To make it accumulate, go to cpanel > Raw Log Manager, check the "Archive raw logs" checkbox and clear the "Delete raw logs" checkbox.

Your raw log will accumulate in a .gz file that you can download any time you want from Raw Log Manager. If you want to delete it after downloading it (so you don't repeatedly get data you've already downloaded and processed), go to cpanel > File Manager > Logs (directory), where you'll see the file and can delete it. The next day, when the server finds that the .gz file has been deleted, it just starts a new one. So each time you download and delete, you'll be getting only new data. 

The reason Webalizer's statistics are cumulative even though the raw logs are deleted is that it keeps its own data files where it stores the statistics only.  Each stats run updates those numbers. After that, it no longer needs the raw data.