How to Configure AWStats on CentOS/RHEL and Fedora

AWStats is a free and open-source log analyzer that provides detailed insights into the traffic of your Apache web server. With AWStats, you can track website visits, referring websites, search engines, operating systems, browsers, and much more. It’s an effective tool for website owners, system administrators, and developers to monitor the performance of their website and make informed decisions to optimize it.

This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to set up AWStats on CentOS, RHEL, and Fedora systems. The guide covers all the necessary prerequisites, including installing the required dependencies and the AWStats software, configuring AWStats to analyze Apache logs, setting up Apache to work with AWStats, and updating the AWStats database to analyze Apache logs.

Prerequisites

• A VPS or dedicated server with a Linux operating system installed.
• Apache web server installed and configured.
• Perl and other required dependencies installed.

Step 1: Installing AWStats

To install AWStats on your system, follow these steps:

1. Connect to your server via SSH
2. Install the required dependencies using the following command:

   sudo dnf install perl-Time-HiRes perl-libwww-perl 
   

3. Download the latest version of AWStats using the following command:

   wget https://downloads.sourceforge.net/awstats/awstats-7.9.tar.gz 
   

4. Extract the downloaded archive using the following command:

   tar xvzf awstats-7.9.tar.gz 
   

5. Move the extracted folder to the Apache web server’s root directory:

   mv awstats-7.9 /var/www/html/awstats 
   

Step 2: Configuring AWStats

Once AWStats is installed, you need to configure it to analyze your Apache logs. Here’s how:

1. Copy the example configuration file to a new file:

   mkdir /etc/awstats 
   cp /var/www/html/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.model.conf /etc/awstats/awstats.example.com.conf 
   

   Replace “example.com” in the above command with the name of your domain.

2. Edit the newly created configuration file using your preferred text editor:

   nano /etc/awstats/awstats.example.com.conf 
   

   Modify the following variables in the configuration file:

   • LogFile: The path to your Apache log file. (/var/log/httpd/access.log)
   • SiteDomain: The domain name of your website. (example.com)
   • DirData: The directory where AWStats will store its data.
3. Save the changes and close the text editor.

Step 3: Setting Up Apache

To set up Apache to work with AWStats, follow these steps:

1. Create a new Apache virtual host file:

   nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/awstats.example.com.conf 
   

   Replace “example.com” in the above command with the name of your domain.

2. Add the following code to the virtual host file:

   
   <VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerName awstats.example.com
     DocumentRoot /var/www/html/awstats/wwwroot
     ScriptAlias /awstats/ /var/www/html/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin/
   
     <Directory /var/www/html/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin/>
       Options ExecCGI
       AllowOverride None
       Order allow,deny
       Allow from all
     </Directory>
   
     <Directory /var/www/html/awstats/wwwroot/>
       Options None
       AllowOverride None
       Order allow,deny
       Allow from all
     </Directory>
   </VirtualHost>
   
   

3. Save the changes and close the text editor.

Step 4: Analyzing Apache Logs

To analyze your Apache logs with AWStats, follow these steps:

1. Run the following command to update the AWStats database:

   cd /var/www/html/awstats/ 
   perl tools/awstats_updateall.pl now -config=example.com -awstatsprog=./wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.pl 
   

   Replace “example.com” in the above command with the name of your domain.

2. Access the AWStats dashboard by visiting “http://awstats.example.com/awstats/awstats.pl?config=example.com” in your web browser.
3. You should now see the AWStats dashboard displaying valuable insights into your website’s traffic, including the number of visitors, pages viewed, referring websites, and more.

Step 5: Schedule to auto update

Schedule a cron job to regularly update the AWStats database using newly created log entries. Add a new cron job in crontab like below. Read examples of cron scheduling

# Cronjob to update logs every hour 
0 * * * * cd /var/www/html/awstats/ && perl tools/awstats_updateall.pl now -config=example.com -awstatsprog=./wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.pl

Conclusion

In this article, we showed you how to install and set up AWStats on CentOS, RHEL, and Fedora systems. With this powerful log analyzer tool, you can gain valuable insights into your website’s traffic and make informed decisions to improve your website’s performance.