Generating log reports

Webalizer generates reports based on the configuration options, set for the site by the Appliance Administrator, when the site is created.

When a log report is requested, Webalizer performs the following actions to produce the report.

1. Reads for the Webalizer configuration information (contained in the webalizer.conf file) for the site. It scans the current directory, by default, for the Webalizer configuration file, if not found, looks for the file under the /etc directory.

2. Opens the Web server configuration file to read necessary information. Webalizer can read both GZ and ZIP file formats. If it gets a GZ or ZIP format, it decompresses the file on the fly.

3. Creates an output directory to store the log reports. If no directory is specified, the current directory is used.

4. Reads the history file (contains totals for previous months) for the site, if it exists.

5. If incremental processing of logs is enabled, then it looks for a data file (named webalizer.current), containing the “internal state” data of the program, that summarizes the previous run.

6. Processes the Web server log file. If the log file contains information for multiple months, a separate HTML file is created for each month.

7. Creates the usage summary (encapsulated in the index.htm file). The usage summary shows totals by month, and links to the HTML page of each month.

8. A new history file is saved to disk, which contains the totals generated by Webalizer during the current run.

9. If incremental processing is enabled, a data file (webalizer.current) is written, which captures the “internal state” data at the end of the current run.