I wanted a comprehensive log analyzer application for my httpd server and AWStats is a fantastic package for just such a need! Getting it deployed on my Slicehost image was an entirely simple task, but I thought I’d post the instructions for anyone else who may need to do the same.
It goes a little something like this (performed on the image instance, obviously):
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me@foo: cd /usr/local me@foo: sudo mkdir awstats me@foo: sudo wget http://path-to-latest-awstats-package me@foo: sudo unzip awstats.zip -d awstats; cd awstats me@foo: sudo chown -R apache:apache wwwroot me@foo: cd tools me@foo: sudo ./awstats_configure.pl |
Here, follow the prompts, filling in the various configuration items as needed. A new config file will be placed under /etc/awstats. We’ll assume the website is foo.com and the configuration section created is also called foo.com.
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me@foo: cd /etc/awstats me@foo: vim awstats.foo.com.conf |
You’ll need to make some path changes here, most likely. I had to change the LogFile path on line 52. I also removed localhost from the HostAliases on line 146.
Next, I modified my httpd.conf file to include the path to the cgi-bin folder for AWStats within the virtual directory for which I created the AWStats configuration:
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# Directives to allow use of AWStats as a CGI Alias /awstatsclasses "/usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/classes/" Alias /awstatscss "/usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/css/" Alias /awstatsicons "/usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/icon/" ScriptAlias /awstats/ "/usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin/" # This is to permit URL access to scripts/files in AWStats directory. <Directory "/usr/local/awstats/wwwroot"> AddHandler cgi-script pl Options +ExecCGI AllowOverride Options Order allow,deny Allow from all AuthType Basic AuthName "Private" AuthUserFile /usr/local/apache2/conf/htusers Require valid-user </Directory> |
You can see here that I require authentication to see my stats. You may or may not want to do this; if not, just don’t include the lines between “Allow from all” and “</Directory>”.
Now, assuming everything is configured correctly, all that remains is to generate your first set of reports, then gracefully restart your web server:
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me@foo: cd /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin/ me@foo: sudo perl awstats.pl -update -config=foo.com me@foo: sudo apachectl graceful |
Substitute foo.com with the name of your configuration. With that, just point your browser to http://foo.com/awstats/awstats.pl?config=foo.com and see the glorious stats in all of their shining glory before you!
Note: If you only have a single awstat configuration, you can leave off the ?config=foo.com portion of the URL.
Finally, I installed a cron task to generate reports hourly.
I hope this helps. I’m always looking for suggestions or constructive criticism, so please feel free to leave a comment 
Enjoy!
