Provided by: goaccess_1.9.1-1_amd64 
NAME
goaccess - fast web log analyzer and interactive viewer.
SYNOPSIS
goaccess [filename] [options...] [-c][-M][-H][-q][-d][...]
DESCRIPTION
goaccess GoAccess is an open source real-time web log analyzer and interactive viewer that runs in a
terminal in *nix systems or through your browser.
It provides fast and valuable HTTP statistics for system administrators that require a visual server
report on the fly.
GoAccess parses the specified web log file and outputs the data to the X terminal. Features include:
General Statistics:
This panel gives a summary of several metrics, such as the number of valid and invalid requests,
time taken to analyze the dataset, unique visitors, requested files, static files (CSS, ICO, JPG,
etc) HTTP referrers, 404s, size of the parsed log file and bandwidth consumption.
Unique visitors
This panel shows metrics such as hits, unique visitors and cumulative bandwidth per date. HTTP
requests containing the same IP, the same date, and the same user agent are considered a unique
visitor. By default, it includes web crawlers/spiders.
Optionally, date specificity can be set to the hour level using --date-spec=hr which will display
dates such as 05/Jun/2016:16, or to the minute level producing 05/Jun/2016:16:59. This is great if
you want to track your daily traffic at the hour or minute level.
Requested files
This panel displays the most requested (non-static) files on your web server. It shows hits,
unique visitors, and percentage, along with the cumulative bandwidth, protocol, and the request
method used.
Requested static files
Lists the most frequently static files such as: JPG, CSS, SWF, JS, GIF, and PNG file types, along
with the same metrics as the last panel. Additional static files can be added to the configuration
file.
404 or Not Found
Displays the same metrics as the previous request panels, however, its data contains all pages
that were not found on the server, or commonly known as 404 status code.
Hosts This panel has detailed information on the hosts themselves. This is great for spotting aggressive
crawlers and identifying who's eating your bandwidth.
Expanding the panel can display more information such as host's reverse DNS lookup result, country
of origin and city. If the -a argument is enabled, a list of user agents can be displayed by
selecting the desired IP address, and then pressing ENTER.
Operating Systems
This panel will report which operating system the host used when it hit the server. It attempts to
provide the most specific version of each operating system.
Browsers
This panel will report which browser the host used when it hit the server. It attempts to provide
the most specific version of each browser.
Visit Times
This panel will display an hourly report. This option displays 24 data points, one for each hour
of the day.
Optionally, hour specificity can be set to the tenth of an hour level using --hour-spec=min which
will display hours as 16:4 This is great if you want to spot peaks of traffic on your server.
Virtual Hosts
This panel will display all the different virtual hosts parsed from the access log. This panel is
displayed if %v is used within the log-format string.
Referrers URLs
If the host in question accessed the site via another resource, or was linked/diverted to you from
another host, the URL they were referred from will be provided in this panel. See `--ignore-panel`
in your configuration file to enable it. disabled by default.
Referring Sites
This panel will display only the host part but not the whole URL. The URL where the request came
from.
Keyphrases
It reports keyphrases used on Google search, Google cache, and Google translate that have lead to
your web server. At present, it only supports Google search queries via HTTP. See `--ignore-panel`
in your configuration file to enable it. disabled by default.
Geo Location
Determines where an IP address is geographically located. Statistics are broken down by continent
and country. It needs to be compiled with GeoLocation support.
HTTP Status Codes
The values of the numeric status code to HTTP requests.
ASN This panel displays ASN (Autonomous System Numbers) data for GeoIP2 and legacy databases. Great
for detecting malicious traffic and blocking accordingly.
Remote User (HTTP authentication)
This is the userid of the person requesting the document as determined by HTTP authentication. If
the document is not password protected, this part will be "-" just like the previous one. This
panel is not enabled unless %e is given within the log-format variable.
Cache Status
If you are using caching on your server, you may be at the point where you want to know if your
request is being cached and served from the cache. This panel shows the cache status of the object
the server served. This panel is not enabled unless %C is given within the log-format variable.
The status can be either
`MISS`, `BYPASS`, `EXPIRED`, `STALE`, `UPDATING`, `REVALIDATED` or `HIT`
MIME Types
This panel specifies Media Types (formerly known as MIME types) and Media Subtypes which will be
assigned and listed underneath. This panel is not enabled unless %M is given within the log-format
variable. See https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml for more details.
Encryption Settings
This panel shows the SSL/TLS protocol used along the Cipher Suites. This panel is not enabled
unless %K is given within the log-format variable.
NOTE: Optionally and if configured, all panels can display the average time taken to serve the request.
STORAGE
There are three storage options that can be used with GoAccess. Choosing one will depend on your
environment and needs.
Default Hash Tables
In-memory storage provides better performance at the cost of limiting the dataset size to the
amount of available physical memory. GoAccess uses in-memory hash tables. It has very good memory
usage and pretty good performance. This storage has support for on-disk persistence.
CONFIGURATION
Multiple options can be used to configure GoAccess. For a complete up-to-date list of configure options,
run ./configure --help
--enable-debug
Compile with debugging symbols and turn off compiler optimizations.
--enable-utf8
Compile with wide character support. Ncursesw is required.
--enable-geoip=<legacy|mmdb>
Compile with GeoLocation support. MaxMind's GeoIP is required. legacy will utilize the original
GeoIP databases. mmdb will utilize the enhanced GeoIP2 databases.
--with-getline
Dynamically expands line buffer in order to parse full line requests instead of using a fixed size
buffer of 4096.
--with-openssl
Compile GoAccess with OpenSSL support for its WebSocket server.
OPTIONS
The following options can be supplied to the command or specified in the configuration file. If specified
in the configuration file, long options need to be used without prepending -- and without using the equal
sign =.
LOG/DATE/TIME FORMAT
--time-format=<timeformat>
The time-format variable followed by a space, specifies the log format time containing either a
name of a predefined format (see options below) or any combination of regular characters and
special format specifiers.
They all begin with a percentage (%) sign. See `man strftime`. %T or %H:%M:%S.
Note that if a timestamp is given in microseconds, %f must be used as time-format. If the
timestamp is given in milliseconds %* must be used as time-format.
--date-format=<dateformat>
The date-format variable followed by a space, specifies the log format time containing either a
name of a predefined format (see options below) or any combination of regular characters and
special format specifiers.
They all begin with a percentage (%) sign. See `man strftime`. %Y-%m-%d.
Note that if a timestamp is given in microseconds, %f must be used as date-format. If the
timestamp is given in milliseconds %* must be used as date-format.
--datetime-format=<date_time_format>
The date and time format combines the two variables into a single option. This gives the ability
to get the timezone from a request and convert it to another timezone for output. See
--tz=<timezone>
They all begin with a percentage (%) sign. See `man strftime`. e.g., %d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S %z.
Note that if --datetime-format is used, %x must be passed in the log-format variable to represent
the date and time field.
--log-format=<logformat>
The log-format variable followed by a space or \t for tab-delimited, specifies the log format
string.
Note that if there are spaces within the format, the string needs to be enclosed in single/double
quotes. Inner quotes need to be escaped.
In addition to specifying the raw log/date/time formats, for simplicity, any of the following
predefined log format names can be supplied to the log/date/time-format variables. GoAccess can
also handle one predefined name in one variable and another predefined name in another variable.
COMBINED - Combined Log Format,
VCOMBINED - Combined Log Format with Virtual Host,
COMMON - Common Log Format,
VCOMMON - Common Log Format with Virtual Host,
W3C - W3C Extended Log File Format,
SQUID - Native Squid Log Format,
CLOUDFRONT - Amazon CloudFront Web Distribution,
CLOUDSTORAGE - Google Cloud Storage,
AWSELB - Amazon Elastic Load Balancing,
AWSS3 - Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
AWSALB - Amazon Application Load Balancer
CADDY - Caddy's JSON Structured format
TRAEFIKCLF - Traefik's CLF flavor
Note: Piping data into GoAccess won't prompt a log/date/time configuration dialog, you will need
to previously define it in your configuration file or in the command line.
USER INTERFACE OPTIONS
-c --config-dialog
Prompt log/time/date configuration window on program start. Only when curses is initialized.
-i --hl-header
Color highlight active terminal panel.
-m --with-mouse
Enable mouse support on main terminal dashboard.
---color=<fg:bg[attrs, PANEL]>
Specify custom colors for the terminal output.
Color Syntax
DEFINITION space/tab colorFG#:colorBG# [attributes,PANEL]
FG# = foreground color [-1...255] (-1 = default term color)
BG# = background color [-1...255] (-1 = default term color)
Optionally, it is possible to apply color attributes (multiple attributes are comma separated),
such as: bold, underline, normal, reverse, blink
If desired, it is possible to apply custom colors per panel, that is, a metric in the REQUESTS
panel can be of color A, while the same metric in the BROWSERS panel can be of color B.
Available color definitions:
COLOR_MTRC_HITS
COLOR_MTRC_VISITORS
COLOR_MTRC_DATA
COLOR_MTRC_BW
COLOR_MTRC_AVGTS
COLOR_MTRC_CUMTS
COLOR_MTRC_MAXTS
COLOR_MTRC_PROT
COLOR_MTRC_MTHD
COLOR_MTRC_HITS_PERC
COLOR_MTRC_HITS_PERC_MAX
COLOR_MTRC_VISITORS_PERC
COLOR_MTRC_VISITORS_PERC_MAX
COLOR_PANEL_COLS
COLOR_BARS
COLOR_ERROR
COLOR_SELECTED
COLOR_PANEL_ACTIVE
COLOR_PANEL_HEADER
COLOR_PANEL_DESC
COLOR_OVERALL_LBLS
COLOR_OVERALL_VALS
COLOR_OVERALL_PATH
COLOR_ACTIVE_LABEL
COLOR_BG
COLOR_DEFAULT
COLOR_PROGRESS
See configuration file for a sample color scheme.
--color-scheme=<1|2|3>
Choose among color schemes. 1 for the default grey scheme. 2 for the green scheme. 3 for the
Monokai scheme (shown only if terminal supports 256 colors).
--crawlers-only
Parse and display only crawlers (bots).
--html-custom-css=<path/custom.css>
Specifies a custom CSS file path to load in the HTML report.
--html-custom-js=<path/custom.js>
Specifies a custom JS file path to load in the HTML report.
--html-report-title=<title>
Set HTML report page title and header.
--html-refresh=<secs>
Refresh the HTML report every X seconds. The value has to be between 1 and 60 seconds. The default
is set to refresh the HTML report every 1 second.
--html-prefs=<JSON>
Set HTML report default preferences. Supply a valid JSON object containing the HTML preferences.
It allows the ability to customize each panel plot. See example below.
Note: The JSON object passed needs to be a one line JSON string. For instance,
--html-prefs='{"theme":"bright","perPage":5,"layout":"horizontal","showTables":true,"visitors":{"plot":{"chartType":"bar"}}}'
--json-pretty-print
Format JSON output using tabs and newlines.
Note: This is not recommended when outputting a real-time HTML report since the WebSocket payload
will much much larger.
--max-items=<number>
The maximum number of items to display per panel. The maximum can be a number between 1 and n.
Note: Only the CSV and JSON output allow a maximum number greater than the default value of 366
(or 50 in the real-time HTML output) items per panel.
--no-color
Turn off colored output. This is the default output on terminals that do not support colors.
--no-column-names
Don't write column names in the terminal output. By default, it displays column names for each
available metric in every panel.
--no-csv-summary
Disable summary metrics on the CSV output.
--no-progress
Disable progress metrics [total requests/requests per second].
--no-tab-scroll
Disable scrolling through panels when TAB is pressed or when a panel is selected using a numeric
key.
--no-html-last-updated
Do not show the last updated field displayed in the HTML generated report.
--no-parsing-spinner
Do now show the progress metrics and parsing spinner.
--tz=<timezone>
Outputs the report date/time data in the given timezone. Note that it uses the canonical timezone
name. e.g., Europe/Berlin or America/Chicago or Africa/Cairo If an invalid timezone name is given,
the output will be in GMT. See --datetime-format in order to properly specify a timezone in the
date/time format.
SERVER OPTIONS
Note This is just a WebSocket server to provide the raw real-time data. It is not a WebServer itself. To
access your reports html file, you will still need your own HTTP server, place the generated report in
it's document root dir and open the html file in your browser. The browser will then open another
WebSocket-connection to the ws-server you may setup here, to keep the dashboard up-to-date.
--addr Specify IP address to bind the server to. Otherwise it binds to 0.0.0.0.
Usually there is no need to specify the address, unless you intentionally would like to bind the
server to a different address within your server.
--daemonize
Run GoAccess as daemon (only if --real-time-html enabled).
Note: It's important to make use of absolute paths across GoAccess' configuration.
--user-name=<username>
Run GoAccess as the specified user.
Note: It's important to ensure the user or the users' group can access the input and output files
as well as any other files needed. Other groups the user belongs to will be ignored. As such
it's advised to run GoAccess behind a SSL proxy as it's unlikely this user can access the SSL
certificates.
--origin=<url>
Ensure clients send the specified origin header upon the WebSocket handshake.
--pid-file=<path/goaccess.pid>
Write the daemon PID to a file when used along the --daemonize option.
--port=<port>
Specify the port to use. By default GoAccess' WebSocket server listens on port 7890.
--real-time-html
Enable real-time HTML output.
GoAccess uses its own WebSocket server to push the data from the server to the client. See
http://gwsocket.io for more details how the WebSocket server works.
--ws-url=<[scheme://]url[:port]>
URL to which the WebSocket server responds. This is the URL supplied to the WebSocket constructor
on the client side.
Optionally, it is possible to specify the WebSocket URI scheme, such as ws:// or wss:// for
unencrypted and encrypted connections. e.g., wss://goaccess.io
If GoAccess is running behind a proxy, you could set the client side to connect to a different
port by specifying the host followed by a colon and the port. e.g., goaccess.io:9999
By default, it will attempt to connect to the generated report's hostname. If GoAccess is running
on a remote server, the host of the remote server should be specified here. Also, make sure it is
a valid host and NOT an http address.
--ping-interval=<secs>
Enable WebSocket ping with specified interval in seconds. This helps prevent idle connections
getting disconnected.
--fifo-in=<path/file>
Creates a named pipe (FIFO) that reads from on the given path/file.
--fifo-out=<path/file>
Creates a named pipe (FIFO) that writes to the given path/file.
--ssl-cert=<cert.crt>
Path to TLS/SSL certificate. In order to enable TLS/SSL support, GoAccess requires that --ssl-cert
and --ssl-key are used.
Only if configured using --with-openssl
--ssl-key=<priv.key>
Path to TLS/SSL private key. In order to enable TLS/SSL support, GoAccess requires that --ssl-cert
and --ssl-key are used.
Only if configured using --with-openssl
FILE OPTIONS
- The log file to parse is read from stdin.
-f --log-file=<logfile>
Specify the path to the input log file. If set in the config file, it will take priority over -f
from the command line.
-S --log-size=<bytes>
Specify the log size in bytes. This is useful when piping in logs for processing in which the log
size can be explicitly set.
-l --debug-file=<debugfile>
Send all debug messages to the specified file.
-p --config-file=<configfile>
Specify a custom configuration file to use. If set, it will take priority over the global
configuration file (if any).
--external-assets
Output HTML assets to external JS/CSS files. Great if you are setting up Content Security Policy
(CSP). This will create two separate files, goaccess.js and goaccess.css , in the same directory
as your report.html file.
--invalid-requests=<filename>
Log invalid requests to the specified file.
--unknowns-log=<filename>
Log unknown browsers and OSs to the specified file.
--no-global-config
Do not load the global configuration file. This directory should normally be /usr/local/etc,
unless specified with --sysconfdir=/dir. See --dcf option for finding the default configuration
file.
PARSE OPTIONS
-a --agent-list
Enable a list of user-agents by host. For faster parsing, do not enable this flag.
-d --with-output-resolver
Enable IP resolver on HTML|JSON output.
-e --exclude-ip=<IP|IP-range>
Exclude an IPv4 or IPv6 from being counted. Applicable solely during access log data processing,
it does not exclude persisted data. Ranges can be included as well using a dash in between the
IPs (start-end).
Examples:
exclude-ip 127.0.0.1
exclude-ip 192.168.0.1-192.168.0.100
exclude-ip ::1
exclude-ip 0:0:0:0:0:ffff:808:804-0:0:0:0:0:ffff:808:808
-j --jobs=<1-6>
This specifies the number of parallel processing threads to be used during the execution of the
program. It determines the degree of concurrency when analyzing log data, allowing for parallel
processing of multiple tasks simultaneously. It defaults to 1 thread. It's common to set the
number of jobs based on the available hardware resources, such as the number of CPU cores.
-H --http-protocol=<yes|no>
Set/unset HTTP request protocol. This will create a request key containing the request protocol +
the actual request.
-M --http-method=<yes|no>
Set/unset HTTP request method. This will create a request key containing the request method + the
actual request.
-o --output=<path/file.[json|csv|html]>
Write output to stdout given one of the following files and the corresponding extension for the
output format:
/path/file.csv - Comma-separated values (CSV)
/path/file.json - JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
/path/file.html - HTML
-q --no-query-string
Ignore request's query string. i.e., www.google.com/page.htm?query => www.google.com/page.htm.
Note: Removing the query string can greatly decrease memory consumption, especially on timestamped
requests.
-r --no-term-resolver
Disable IP resolver on terminal output.
--444-as-404
Treat non-standard status code 444 as 404.
--4xx-to-unique-count
Add 4xx client errors to the unique visitors count.
--anonymize-ip
Anonymize the client IP address. The IP anonymization option sets the last octet of IPv4 user IP
addresses and the last 80 bits of IPv6 addresses to zeros. e.g., 192.168.20.100 => 192.168.20.0
e.g., 2a03:2880:2110:df07:face:b00c::1 => 2a03:2880:2110:df07::
Note: This deactivates -a.
--chunk-size=<256-32768>
This determines the number of lines that form a chunk. This parameter influences the size of the
data processed concurrently by each thread, allowing for parallelization of the file reading and
processing tasks. The value of chunk-size affects the efficiency of the parallel processing and
can be adjusted based on factors such as system resources and the characteristics of the input
data.
Low Values: If chunk-size is set too low, it might result in inefficient processing. For instance,
if each chunk contains a very small number of lines, the overhead of managing and coordinating
parallel processing might outweigh the benefits.
Large Values: Conversely, if chunk-size is set too high, it could lead to resource exhaustion.
Each chunk represents a portion of data that a thread processes in parallel. Setting chunk-size to
an excessively large value might cause memory issues, particularly if there are many parallel
threads running simultaneously.
--anonymize-level
Specifies the anonymization levels: 1 => default, 2 => strong, 3 => pedantic.
┌────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┐
│Bits-hidden │ Level 1 │ Level 2 │ Level 3 │
├────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│IPv4 │ 8 │ 16 │ 24 │
├────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│IPv6 │ 64 │ 80 │ 96 │
└────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┘
--all-static-files
Include static files that contain a query string. e.g., /fonts/fontawesome-webfont.woff?v=4.0.3
--browsers-file=<path>
By default GoAccess parses an "essential/basic" curated list of browsers & crawlers. If you need
to add additional browsers, use this option. Include an additional delimited list of
browsers/crawlers/feeds etc. See config/browsers.list for an example or
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/allinurl/goaccess/master/config/browsers.list
--date-spec=<date|hr|min>
Set the date specificity to either date (default), hr to display hours or min to display minutes
appended to the date.
This is used in the visitors panel. It's useful for tracking visitors at the hour level. For
instance, an hour specificity would yield to display traffic as 18/Dec/2010:19 or minute
specificity 18/Dec/2010:19:59.
--double-decode
Decode double-encoded values. This includes, user-agent, request, and referrer.
--enable-panel=<PANEL>
Enable parsing and displaying the given panel.
Available panels:
VISITORS
REQUESTS
REQUESTS_STATIC
NOT_FOUND
HOSTS
OS
BROWSERS
VISIT_TIMES
VIRTUAL_HOSTS
REFERRERS
REFERRING_SITES
KEYPHRASES
STATUS_CODES
REMOTE_USER
CACHE_STATUS
GEO_LOCATION
MIME_TYPE
TLS_TYPE
--fname-as-vhost=<regex>
Use log filename(s) as virtual host(s). POSIX regex is passed to extract the virtual host from the
filename. e.g., --fname-as-vhost='[a-z]*.[a-z]*' can be used to extract awesome.com.log =>
awesome.com.
--hide-referrer=<NEEDLE>
Hide a referrer but still count it. Wild cards are allowed in the needle. i.e., *.bing.com.
--hour-spec=<hr|min>
Set the time specificity to either hour (default) or min to display the tenth of an hour appended
to the hour.
This is used in the time distribution panel. It's useful for tracking peaks of traffic on your
server at specific times.
--ignore-crawlers
Ignore crawlers from being counted.
--unknowns-as-crawlers
Classify unknown OS and browsers as crawlers.
--ignore-panel=<PANEL>
Ignore parsing and displaying the given panel.
Available panels:
VISITORS
REQUESTS
REQUESTS_STATIC
NOT_FOUND
HOSTS
OS
BROWSERS
VISIT_TIMES
VIRTUAL_HOSTS
REFERRERS
REFERRING_SITES
KEYPHRASES
STATUS_CODES
REMOTE_USER
CACHE_STATUS
GEO_LOCATION
MIME_TYPE
TLS_TYPE
--ignore-referrer=<referrer>
Ignore referrers from being counted. Wildcards allowed. e.g., *.domain.com ww?.domain.*
--ignore-statics=<req|panel>
Ignore static file requests.
req
Only ignore request from valid requests
panels
Ignore request from panels.
Note that it will count them towards the total number of requests
--ignore-status=<CODE>
Ignore parsing and displaying one or multiple status code(s). For multiple status codes, use this
option multiple times.
--keep-last=<num_days>
Keep the last specified number of days in storage. This will recycle the storage tables. e.g.,
keep & show only the last 7 days.
--no-ip-validation
Disable client IP validation. Useful if IP addresses have been obfuscated before being logged.
The log still needs to contain a placeholder for %h usually it's a resolved IP. e.g. ord37s19-in-
f14.1e100.net.
--no-strict-status
Disable HTTP status code validation. Some servers would record this value only if a connection was
established to the target and the target sent a response. Otherwise, it could be recorded as -.
--num-tests=<number>
Number of lines from the access log to test against the provided log/date/time format. By default,
the parser is set to test 10 lines. If set to 0, the parser won't test any lines and will parse
the whole access log. If a line matches the given log/date/time format before it reaches <number>,
the parser will consider the log to be valid, otherwise GoAccess will return EXIT_FAILURE and
display the relevant error messages.
--process-and-exit
Parse log and exit without outputting data. Useful if we are looking to only add new data to the
on-disk database without outputting to a file or a terminal.
--real-os
Display real OS names. e.g, Windows XP, Snow Leopard.
--sort-panel=<PANEL,FIELD,ORDER>
Sort panel on initial load. Sort options are separated by comma. Options are in the form:
PANEL,METRIC,ORDER
Available metrics:
BY_HITS - Sort by hits
BY_VISITORS - Sort by unique visitors
BY_DATA - Sort by data
BY_BW - Sort by bandwidth
BY_AVGTS - Sort by average time served
BY_CUMTS - Sort by cumulative time served
BY_MAXTS - Sort by maximum time served
BY_PROT - Sort by http protocol
BY_MTHD - Sort by http method
Available orders:
ASC
DESC
--static-file=<extension>
Add static file extension. e.g.: .mp3 Extensions are case sensitive.
GEOLOCATION OPTIONS
-g --std-geoip
Standard GeoIP database for less memory usage.
--geoip-database=<geofile>
Specify path to GeoIP database file. i.e., GeoLiteCity.dat.
If using GeoIP2, you will need to download the GeoLite2 City or Country database from MaxMind.com
and use the option --geoip-database to specify the database. You can also get updated database
files for GeoIP legacy, you can find these as GeoLite Legacy Databases from MaxMind.com. IPv4 and
IPv6 files are supported as well. For updated DB URLs, please see the default GoAccess
configuration file.
Note: --geoip-city-data is an alias of --geoip-database.
OTHER OPTIONS
-h --help
The help.
-s --storage
Display current storage method. i.e., B+ Tree, Hash.
-V --version
Display version information and exit.
--dcf Display the path of the default config file when `-p` is not used.
PERSISTENCE STORAGE OPTIONS
--persist
Persist parsed data into disk. If database files exist, files will be overwritten. This should be
set to the first dataset. See examples below.
--restore
Load previously stored data from disk. If reading persisted data only, the database files need to
exist. See --persist and examples below.
--db-path=<dir>
Path where the on-disk database files are stored. The default value is the /tmp directory.
CUSTOM LOG/DATE FORMAT
GoAccess can parse virtually any web log format.
Predefined options include, Common Log Format (CLF), Combined Log Format (XLF/ELF), including virtual
host, Amazon CloudFront (Download Distribution), Google Cloud Storage and W3C format (IIS).
GoAccess allows any custom format string as well.
There are two ways to configure the log format. The easiest is to run GoAccess with -c to prompt a
configuration window. Otherwise, it can be configured under ~/.goaccessrc or the %sysconfdir%.
time-format
The time-format variable followed by a space, specifies the log format time containing any
combination of regular characters and special format specifiers. They all begin with a percentage
(%) sign. See `man strftime`. %T or %H:%M:%S.
Note: If a timestamp is given in microseconds, %f must be used as time-format or %* if the
timestamp is given in milliseconds.
date-format
The date-format variable followed by a space, specifies the log format date containing any
combination of regular characters and special format specifiers. They all begin with a percentage
(%) sign. See `man strftime`. e.g., %Y-%m-%d.
Note: If a timestamp is given in microseconds, %f must be used as date-format or %* if the
timestamp is given in milliseconds.
log-format
The log-format variable followed by a space or \t , specifies the log format string.
%x A date and time field matching the time-format and date-format variables. This is used when given
a timestamp or the date & time are concatenated as a single string (e.g., 1501647332 or
20170801235000) instead of the date and time being in two separated variables.
%t time field matching the time-format variable.
%d date field matching the date-format variable.
%v The canonical Server Name of the server serving the request (Virtual Host).
%e This is the userid of the person requesting the document as determined by HTTP authentication.
%C The cache status of the object the server served.
%h host (the client IP address, either IPv4 or IPv6)
%r The request line from the client. This requires specific delimiters around the request (as single
quotes, double quotes, or anything else) to be parsable. If not, we have to use a combination of
special format specifiers as %m %U %H.
%q The query string.
%m The request method.
%U The URL path requested.
Note: If the query string is in %U, there is no need to use %q. However, if the URL path, does
not include any query string, you may use %q and the query string will be appended to the request.
%H The request protocol.
%s The status code that the server sends back to the client.
%b The size of the object returned to the client.
%R The "Referrer" HTTP request header.
%u The user-agent HTTP request header.
%K The TLS encryption settings chosen for the connection. (In Apache LogFormat: %{SSL_PROTOCOL}x)
%k The TLS encryption settings chosen for the connection. (In Apache LogFormat: %{SSL_CIPHER}x)
%M The MIME-type of the requested resource. (In Apache LogFormat: %{Content-Type}o)
%D The time taken to serve the request, in microseconds as a decimal number.
%T The time taken to serve the request, in seconds with milliseconds resolution.
%L The time taken to serve the request, in milliseconds as a decimal number.
%n The time taken to serve the request, in nanoseconds.
%^ Ignore this field.
%~ Move forward through the log string until a non-space (!isspace) char is found.
~h The host (the client IP address, either IPv4 or IPv6) in a X-Forwarded-For (XFF) field.
It uses a special specifier which consists of a tilde before the host specifier, followed by the
character(s) that delimit the XFF field, which are enclosed by curly braces. i.e., "~h{, }
For example, "~h{, }" is used in order to parse "11.25.11.53, 17.68.33.17" field which is
delimited by a comma and a space (enclosed by double quotes).
┌─────────────────────────────────────┬───────────┐
│XFF field │ specifier │
├─────────────────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"192.1.2.3, 192.68.33.17, 192.1.1.2" │ "~h{, }" │
├─────────────────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"192.1.2.12", "192.68.33.17" │ ~h{", } │
├─────────────────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│192.1.2.12, 192.68.33.17 │ ~h{, } │
├─────────────────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│192.1.2.14 192.68.33.17 192.1.1.2 │ ~h{ } │
└─────────────────────────────────────┴───────────┘
Note: In order to get the average, cumulative and maximum time served in GoAccess, you will need to start
logging response times in your web server. In Nginx you can add $request_time to your log format, or %D
in Apache.
Important: If multiple time served specifiers are used at the same time, the first option specified in
the format string will take priority over the other specifiers.
GoAccess requires the following fields:
%h a valid IPv4/6
%d a valid date
%r the request
INTERACTIVE MENU
F1 or h
Main help.
F5 Redraw main window.
q Quit the program, current window or collapse active module
o or ENTER
Expand selected module or open window
0-9 and Shift + 0
Set selected module to active
j Scroll down within expanded module
k Scroll up within expanded module
c Set or change scheme color.
TAB Forward iteration of modules. Starts from current active module.
SHIFT + TAB
Backward iteration of modules. Starts from current active module.
^f Scroll forward one screen within an active module.
^b Scroll backward one screen within an active module.
s Sort options for active module
/ Search across all modules (regex allowed)
n Find the position of the next occurrence across all modules.
g Move to the first item or top of screen.
G Move to the last item or bottom of screen.
EXAMPLES
Note: Piping data into GoAccess won't prompt a log/date/time configuration dialog, you will need to
previously define it in your configuration file or in the command line.
DIFFERENT OUTPUTS
To output to a terminal and generate an interactive report:
# goaccess access.log
To generate an HTML report:
# goaccess access.log -a -o report.html
To generate a JSON report:
# goaccess access.log -a -d -o report.json
To generate a CSV file:
# goaccess access.log --no-csv-summary -o report.csv
GoAccess also allows great flexibility for real-time filtering and parsing. For instance, to quickly
diagnose issues by monitoring logs since goaccess was started:
# tail -f access.log | goaccess -
And even better, to filter while maintaining opened a pipe to preserve real-time analysis, we can make
use of tail -f and a matching pattern tool such as grep, awk, sed, etc:
# tail -f access.log | grep -i --line-buffered 'firefox' | goaccess --log-format=COMBINED -
or to parse from the beginning of the file while maintaining the pipe opened and applying a filter
# tail -f -n +0 access.log | grep -i --line-buffered 'firefox' | goaccess --log-format=COMBINED -o
report.html --real-time-html -
or to convert the log date timezone to a different timezone, e.g., Europe/Berlin
# goaccess access.log --log-format='%h %^[%x] "%r" %s %b "%R" "%u"' --datetime-
format='%d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S %z' --tz=Europe/Berlin --date-spec=min
MULTIPLE LOG FILES
There are several ways to parse multiple logs with GoAccess. The simplest is to pass multiple log files
to the command line:
# goaccess access.log access.log.1
It's even possible to parse files from a pipe while reading regular files:
# cat access.log.2 | goaccess access.log access.log.1 -
Note that the single dash is appended to the command line to let GoAccess know that it should read from
the pipe.
Now if we want to add more flexibility to GoAccess, we can do a series of pipes. For instance, if we
would like to process all compressed log files access.log.*.gz in addition to the current log file, we
can do:
# zcat access.log.*.gz | goaccess access.log -
Note: On Mac OS X, use gunzip -c instead of zcat.
REAL TIME HTML OUTPUT
GoAccess has the ability to output real-time data in the HTML report. You can even email the HTML file
since it is composed of a single file with no external file dependencies, how neat is that!
The process of generating a real-time HTML report is very similar to the process of creating a static
report. Only --real-time-html is needed to make it real-time.
# goaccess access.log -o /usr/share/nginx/html/site/report.html --real-time-html
By default, GoAccess will use the host name of the generated report. Optionally, you can specify the URL
to which the client's browser will connect to. See https://goaccess.io/faq for a more detailed example.
# goaccess access.log -o report.html --real-time-html --ws-url=goaccess.io
By default, GoAccess listens on port 7890, to use a different port other than 7890, you can specify it as
(make sure the port is opened):
# goaccess access.log -o report.html --real-time-html --port=9870
And to bind the WebSocket server to a different address other than 0.0.0.0, you can specify it as:
# goaccess access.log -o report.html --real-time-html --addr=127.0.0.1
Note: To output real time data over a TLS/SSL connection, you need to use --ssl-cert=<cert.crt> and
--ssl-key=<priv.key>.
WORKING WITH DATES
Another useful pipe would be filtering dates out of the web log
The following will get all HTTP requests starting on 05/Dec/2010 until the end of the file.
# sed -n '/05Dec2010/,$ p' access.log | goaccess -a -
or using relative dates such as yesterdays or tomorrows day:
# sed -n '/'$(date '+%d%b%Y' -d '1 week ago')'/,$ p' access.log | goaccess -a -
If we want to parse only a certain time-frame from DATE a to DATE b, we can do:
# sed -n '/5Nov2010/,/5Dec2010/ p' access.log | goaccess -a -
If we want to preserve only certain amount of data and recycle storage, we can keep only a certain number
of days. For instance to keep & show the last 5 days:
# goaccess access.log --keep-last=5
VIRTUAL HOSTS
Assuming your log contains the virtual host (server blocks) field. For instance:
vhost.com:80 10.131.40.139 - - [02/Mar/2016:08:14:04 -0600] "GET /shop/bag-p-20 HTTP/1.1" 200 6715
"-" "Apache (internal dummy connection)"
And you would like to append the virtual host to the request in order to see which virtual host the top
urls belong to
awk '$8=$1$8' access.log | goaccess -a -
To exclude a list of virtual hosts you can do the following:
# grep -v "`cat exclude_vhost_list_file`" vhost_access.log | goaccess -
FILES & STATUS CODES
To parse specific pages, e.g., page views, html, htm, php, etc. within a request:
# awk '$7~/.html|.htm|.php/' access.log | goaccess -
Note, $7 is the request field for the common and combined log format, (without Virtual Host), if your log
includes Virtual Host, then you probably want to use $8 instead. It's best to check which field you are
shooting for, e.g.:
# tail -10 access.log | awk '{print $8}'
Or to parse a specific status code, e.g., 500 (Internal Server Error):
# awk '$9~/500/' access.log | goaccess -
SERVER
Also, it is worth pointing out that if we want to run GoAccess at lower priority, we can run it as:
# nice -n 19 goaccess -f access.log -a
and if you don't want to install it on your server, you can still run it from your local machine:
# ssh -n root@server 'tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log' | goaccess -
Note: SSH requires -n so GoAccess can read from stdin. Also, make sure to use SSH keys for authentication
as it won't work if a passphrase is required.
INCREMENTAL LOG PROCESSING
GoAccess has the ability to process logs incrementally through its internal storage and dump its data to
disk. It works in the following way:
1 A dataset must be persisted first with --persist, then the same dataset can be loaded with
2 --restore. If new data is passed (piped or through a log file), it will append it to the original
dataset.
NOTES
GoAccess keeps track of inodes of all the files processed (assuming files will stay on the same
partition), in addition, it extracts a snippet of data from the log along with the last line parsed of
each file and the timestamp of the last line parsed. e.g., inode:29627417|line:20012|ts:20171231235059
First it compares if the snippet matches the log being parsed, if it does, it assumes the log hasn't
changed dramatically, e.g., hasn't been truncated. If the inode does not match the current file, it
parses all lines. If the current file matches the inode, it then reads the remaining lines and updates
the count of lines parsed and the timestamp. As an extra precaution, it won't parse log lines with a
timestamp ≤ than the one stored.
Piped data works based off the timestamp of the last line read. For instance, it will parse and discard
all incoming entries until it finds a timestamp >= than the one stored.
For instance:
// last month access log
# goaccess access.log.1 --persist
then, load it with
// append this month access log, and preserve new data
# goaccess access.log --restore --persist
To read persisted data only (without parsing new data)
# goaccess --restore
NOTES
Each active panel has a total of 366 items or 50 in the real-time HTML report. The number of items is
customizable using max-items Note that HTML, CSV and JSON output allow a maximum number greater than the
default value of 366 items per panel.
A hit is a request (line in the access log), e.g., 10 requests = 10 hits. HTTP requests with the same IP,
date, and user agent are considered a unique visit.
If you want to enable dual-stack support, please use --addr=:: instead of the default --addr=0.0.0.0.
The generated report will attempt to reconnect to the WebSocket server after 1 second with exponential
backoff. It will attempt to connect 20 times.
BUGS
If you think you have found a bug, please send me an email to goaccess@prosoftcorp.com or use the issue tracker in https://github.com/allinurl/goaccess/issues
AUTHOR
Gerardo Orellana <hello@goaccess.io> For more details about it, or new releases, please visit https://goaccess.io