Big Brother Log Analyzer v1.6 Installation
1 Prerequisites
- Perl v5.004 or newer.
- Perl module Date::Calc
- GNU make (default on most free UNIX variants)
-
GD graphics library v1.5 or newer.
- PNG graphics library.
- (OPTIONAL) Server Side Includes (SSI) must be supported on your
server to properly log referring pages.
2 Actual installation
- Decompress the distribution file (gzip'ed tar-file
bbla-1.6.tar.gz):
gzip -d -c bbla-1.6.tar.gz | tar
-xvf -
- In the newly created directory (bbla-1.6), modify the Makefile where
indicated in order to set up your local settings:
-
cd bbla-1.6
vi Makefile # (vi is an example, use any
editor you see fit)- Do NOT modify any other
files!
- Generate the perl scripts and compile the C portion of the
program:
- Install all required files with the proper
permissions:
- If you are upgrading from a previous version of BBLA, you may have gotten
a warning during the make install procedure. You probably want to restore your
old logs. Do a:
3 Prepare your web pages for tracking
At the bottom of each page you want to track, include the following tag:
<img src="path_to_script/bbla-logger.pl?dest=name_of_this_page&referer=<!--#echo var="HTTP_REFERER"-->" alt="" >
where "name_of_this_page" can be whatever you want.
The "name_of_this_page" identifier will determine how the page is known as
when logged. Do not use spaces if using a name. For example(s):
<img src="cgi-bin/bbla-logger.pl?dest=index.html&referer=<!--#echo var="HTTP_REFERER"-->" alt="" >
or
<img src="cgi-bin/bbla-logger.pl?dest=Home_Page&referer=<!--#echo var="HTTP_REFERER"-->" alt="" >
Note that, since BBLA uses tags instead of httpd logs, you can track
pages hosted on different servers within the same log file.
IMPORTANT REMARK:
If you are upgrading from a version of BBLA older than 1.5, you may
have noted that the name of the logging script has changed. A symbolic
link from bbla-logger.pl to logger.pl is created during the install
procedure so that you don't have to fumble with your existing tags.
If you are using cgiwrap, this solution will unfortunately not work,
as cgiwrap refuses to execute symbolic links. You will need to remove
logger.pl by hand, and copy bbla-logger.pl to logger.pl to have the
logger work with your old tags. Alternatively, you may want to change
logger.pl to bbla-logger.pl in your tags.
4 Prepare your crontab to generate HTML reports periodically,
using crontab -e.
For instance, addding
0 4 * * 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 /home/nicolas/public_html/cgi-bin/bbla-analyzer.pl
to your crontab will result in generating daily reports at
4am. Note that in the above example, you need to replace
/home/nicolas/public_html/cgi-bin by the path to your cgi-bin
directory. More information on how to set up the crontab can be found
in the manpages of crontab(1) and cron(8).
5 No self-logging feature
When you visit your own webpage, you may not want your own hits to
appear in your logs. BBLA implements a "no self-logging" feature for
that very purpose. Different from what most other log analyzers use,
that is, filtering out given IP address(es) or DNS name(s), the no
self-logging feature in BBLA is cookie-based. In other words, you
prevent hits from a given _browser_ from being logged.
To activate the no self-logging feature on a given (set of) browser(s),
use the browser(s) to visit the page called bbla-config.html, in the
same directory as your log report HTML file. Next, enter the cookie
name and password that you set up in step 2, and hit the "submit"
button. This creates a cookie in your browser; note that said cookie
never expires (well, it does, but in 2100). To remove the cookie,
please refer to your browser documentation. The cookie is not used to
collect information from you, or to implement spyware, but if you feel
uncomfortable about allowing a cookie, just don't use the no self-logging
feature.
6 Remarks
I recommend you keep the bbla source directory somewhere. In case
you want to change some preferences (e.g., the name of your stats
page), it is best to edit the Makefile and "re-make" everything
(make; make install; make restore). However, if you are short on
disk space, you may want to get rid of the bbla directory (it's not
used by the logger or the analyzer). In which case, to change some
configuration parameters, you will have to modify the file bbla.pm
(in your installation directory) by hand. Note that, to save a bit
of disk space, you may want to discard all executables and binaries
in the bbla source directory. You can use "make clean" for that matter.
Maintained by
Nicolas Christin
[Webpage]
Last modified: Sun Jul 25, 2004 at 07:10:55 UTC
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