Using BetterAWStats in Drupal

Feb 16 2010
Our current environment uses AWStats to analyze our HTTP server log files and build reports. Because it has privileged access to our data, and because it is open source, we can glean more information out of it than we could from proprietary hosted analytics platforms. It turns out that there is a PHP front-end to AWStats (called BetterAWStats) that comes complete with a Drupal module. Here, I explain how we've installed and configured this module to get our AWStats data imported into our Atrium server. ## Local Analytics Google Analytics is all well and good, but it's also nice to have a local analytics package that can be tuned and tweaked to mine more data. In the last few weeks, I've created an environment that fetches log files from our different frontline webservers, merges the logs together, and runs awstats on the results. This gives us a nice method for analyzing logs locally. BetterAWStats is a PHP frontend to AWStats that comes complete with a Drupal module. We are using it instead of the standard awstats.pl CGI script. And we have it configured to work inside of our Atrium server, which we use for ticket management, documentation, and team communication. ## Installing BetterAWStats Once the module is downloaded and placed in the module directory, copy over the built-in AWStats icons to the module. (If you want, I guess you could create your own icon sets instead.) ### Copy Icons On Debian, the icons are in `/usr/share/awstats/icon`. So we do this: ~~~ cp -a /usr/share/awstats/icon/* /var/www/VHOST/sites/all/modules/betterawstats/icons/ ~~~ Replace the second path with whatever path goes to your Drupal install. ### Enable and Configure the Module Next, log in as an administrator to Atrium. Go to the module configuration page and enable *BAW Statistics*. From there, you can go to the configuration page and enter the relevant paths. You will need four paths (Debian paths are shown below):
  • The data directory where AW Stats stores its statistical data. (/var/lib/awstats)
  • The library directory where AW Stats tools are located. (/usr/share/awstats/lib)
  • The language directory (/usr/share/awstats/lang)
  • The icon directory. If you followed the instructions above, this should be /sites/all/modules/betterawstats/icons

Save the configuration and you should be good to go.

Extra Configuration Settings

In addition to the "normal" stuff, I have found three other configuration steps I've had to take.

  • Fix vhosts configurations
  • Hard-code hostname in settings.php
  • Hack the the module's map generator.

All three steps are described below.

Make sure you are configured to use virtual host stat files

By default, our Debian package of awstats stores all configuration data in /etc/awstats/awstats.conf and all of the statistics information in /var/lib/awstats/awstatsMOYEAR.txt, where MOYEAR is replaced by a two-digit month code and a four-digit year code (e.g. 022010 for Feb, 2010).

However, Better AWStats requires that AW Stats be configured to use the virtual host setup. The data file must be named according to this convention:

awstatsMOYEAR.DOMAIN.txt

So, for example, I needed a file called /var/lib/awstats/awstats022010.www.spine-health.com.txt

In order to do this, you must rename your main configuration file from /etc/awstats/awstats.conf to /etc/awstats/awstats.DOMAIN.conf, where domain is the fully qualified domain (e.g. awstats.www.spine-health.com.conf).

The next time awstats.pl runs, it will store the data in /var/lib/awstats/awstats022010.www.spine-health.com.txt.

(Note that you can move the awstatsMOYEAR.txt file to awstatsMOYEAR.DOMAIN.txt on your own, and preserve any existing history.)

Hard-code one of the system variables

We are running stats for a domain other than the domain that our Atrium installation is using. Since we want stats for http://www.spine-health.com, we have to hack our settings.inc file for this to override the default configuration variable:

$conf['bawstats_defsite'] = 'www.spine-health.com';

Since Better AWStats stores data in the $_SESSION, I have to log out and back in again for this change to take place.

Hacking the map generator

As it ships, the bawstats Drupal module cannot render its IP distribution map. The reason for this is that it attempts to execute code outside of Drupal, yet use (unloaded) Drupal functions.

To fix this, I had to make two changes to /sites/all/modules/betterawstats/modules/render_map.inc.php:

Line 78:

if ($module == 'drupal') {
    // NOTE: drupal_get_path() does not exist.
    #$img_url = drupal_get_path('module', 'bawstats');
    $img_url = '/sites/all/modules/betterawstats';
} else {
    $img_url = $BAW_CONF['site_url'];
}

Line 101:

if ($module == 'drupal') {
    // AGAIN, drupal_get_path() is not defined.
    # $BAW_CONF['site_path'] = drupal_get_path('module', 'bawstats');
    $BAW_CONF['site_path'] = '../';
} else {
    include_once("./../config.php");
}

That seems to have fixed the map.

(I did file a bug on this, and it's possible that the issue is already fixed.)

Viewing AWStats Data in Drupal

Now the stats should be available in the Reports section of Drupal. You should be able to get there with a URL like http://example.com/admin/reports/bwstats