Provided by: wwwstat_2.0-7_all 
NAME
wwwstat ‐ summarize WWW server (httpd) access statistics
SYNOPSIS
wwwstat [‐F system_config] [‐f user_config] [options...] [‐‐] [ summary | logfile | + | ‐ ]...
DESCRIPTION
wwwstat reads a sequence of httpd common logfile format (CLF) access_log files and/or prior wwwstat
output summary files and/or the standard input and outputs a summary of the access statistics in HTML.
Since wwwstat does not make any changes to the input files or write any files in the server directories,
it can be run by any user with read access to the input logfile(s) and summary file(s). This allows
people other than the webmaster to run specialized analyses of just the things they are interested in
summarizing.
wwwstat provides World Wide Web (WWW) access statistics, which does not necessarily correspond to
statistics on individual users. It counts the number of HTTP requests received by the server and the
amount of bytes transmitted in response to those requests, according to what is in the logfile(s), and
outputs those counts as tables broken down by category of request.
wwwstat output summaries can be read by gwstat to produce fancy graphs of the summarized statistics. The
splitlog program can be used to split a large logfile into separate files by entry prefix or URL path.
wwwstat is a perl script, which means you need to have a perl interpreter to run the program. It has
been tested with perl versions 4.036 and 5.002.
Output Sections
wwwstat's output consists of a set of cross‐reference links, the sum totals and averages for the
processed data, and a sequence of amount‐by‐category tables partitioned into sections. The section
categories are based on the characteristics evident from the access request, as provided by the common
logfile format (see NOTES). These include:
Request Date e.g., "Feb 2 1996"
Request Hour e.g., "00" through "23"
Client Domain The Fully‐Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) suffix that corresponds to an organization
type or country name.
Reversed Subdomain The FQDN, usually minus the first (machine name) component, and reversed so that it
is easier to read when sorted.
URL/Archive Grouping based on Request‐URI or non‐success status code.
Identity The user identity based on IdentityCheck token or Authorization field.
Each section can be enabled/disabled using the configuration files or command‐line options (see Section
Display Options).
Output Table Format
Inside each section, the statistics are presented as a preformatted table.
%Reqs %Byte Bytes Sent Requests category‐type
‐‐‐‐‐ ‐‐‐‐‐ ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ |‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
NN.NN NN.NN NNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNN | category‐value
100.0 100.0 NNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNN | category‐value
Requests Requests received for this category‐value.
Bytes Sent Bytes transmitted for this category‐value.
%Reqs (<Requests>/<Total Requests>)*100.
%Byte (<Bytes Sent>/<Total Bytes>)*100.
The table can be sorted by category‐value (‐sort key), number of requests received (‐sort req), or number
of bytes received (‐sort byte). It can also be limited to the ‐top N entries.
OPTIONS
Configuration Options
These options define how wwwstat should establish defaults and interpret the command‐line.
‐F filename
Get system configuration defaults from the given file. If used, this must be the first argument
on the command‐line, since it needs to be interpreted before the other command options. The file
wwwstat.rc is included with the distribution as an example of this file; it contains perl source
code which directly sets the control and display options provided by wwwstat. If filename is not
a pathname, the include path (see FILES) is searched for filename. An empty string as filename
will disable this feature. [‐F "wwwstat.rc"]
‐f filename
Get user configuration defaults from the given file. If used, this must be the first argument on
the command‐line after ‐F (if any). The file is the same format as for the ‐F option (see
wwwstat.rc). If filename is not a pathname, the include path (see FILES) is searched for
filename. An empty string as filename will disable this feature. [‐f ".wwwstatrc"]
‐‐ Last option (the remaining arguments are treated as input files).
Diagnostic Options
These options provide information about wwwstat usage or about some unusual aspects of the logfile(s)
being processed.
‐h Help ‐ display usage information to STDERR and then exit.
‐v Verbose display to STDERR of each log entry processed.
‐x Display to STDERR all requests resulting in HTTP error responses.
‐e Display to STDERR all invalid log entries. Invalid log entries can occur if the server is
miswriting or overwriting its own log, if the request is made by a broken client or proxy, or if a
malicious attacker is trying to gain privileged access to your system. For the latter reason, the
webmaster should run wwwstat with this option on a regular basis.
Display Options
These options modify the output format.
‐H string
Use the given string as the HTML title and heading for output.
‐X string
Use the given string as the cross‐reference URL to the last summary output. Any occurrence of the
characters "%M" or "%Y" are replaced by the month and year, respectively, of the month prior to
the first log entry date. The empty string will exclude any cross‐reference.
‐R Display the daily stats table sorted in reverse. This option is primarily for use with the gwstat
program for producing graphs of the output.
‐l
‐L Do (‐l) or don't (‐L) display the full DNS hostname of clients in your local domain (which is
determined by the configured value of $AppendToLocalhost) in the section on subdomain statistics.
The default [‐L] is to strip the machine name from local addresses.
‐o
‐O Do (‐o) or don't (‐O) display the full DNS hostname of clients outside your local domain in the
section on subdomain statistics. The default [‐O] is to strip the machine name from outside
addresses.
‐u
‐U Do (‐u) or don't (‐U) display the IP address of clients with unresolved domain names in the
section on subdomain statistics. The ‐dns option can be used to resolve some names, but not all IP
hosts have a DNS name (SLIP/PPP connections) and sometimes a host's DNS service is inaccessible.
The default [‐U] is to group all such addresses under the category "Unresolved".
‐dns
‐nodns Do (‐dns) or don't (‐nodns) use the system's hostname lookup facilities to find the DNS hostname
associated with any unresolved IP addresses. Looking up a DNS name may be very slow, particularly
when the results are negative (no DNS name), which is why a caching capability is included as
well. [‐nodns]
‐cache filename
Use the given DBM database as the read/write persistent DNS cache (the .dir and .pag extensions
are appended automatically). Cached entries (including negative results) are removed after the
time configured for $DNSexpires [two months]. No caching is performed if filename is the empty
string, which may be needed if your system does not support DBM or NDBM functionality. Running
‐dns without a persistent cache is not recommended. [‐cache "dnscache"]
‐trunc N
Truncate the URLs listed in the archive section after the Nth hierarchy level. This option is
commonly used to reduce the output size and memory requirements of wwwstat by grouping the
requests by directory tree instead of listing every URL. The default [‐trunc 0] is to display
every requested URL.
‐files
‐nofiles
Do (‐files) or don't (‐nofiles) include the last component of a URL (usually the filename) in the
archive section. This option is commonly used to reduce the output size and memory requirements of
wwwstat by grouping the requests by directory instead of listing every URL. The default [‐files]
is to display the entire requested URL.
‐link
‐nolink
Do (‐link) or don't (‐nolink) add a hypertext link around each archive URL. This option is useful
for local maintenance, but it is not recommended for publication of the HTML results (it often
results in links to temporary or nonexistant resources, and leads people/robots to resources that
might not be publically available). [‐nolink]
‐cgi
‐nocgi Do (‐cgi) or don't (‐nocgi) prefix the summary output with CGI header fields appropriate for use
with the HTTP common gateway interface. Using wwwstat as a CGI script is not recommended ‐ it is
usually better to simply run the wwwstat program periodically and serve the static output file.
[‐nocgi]
Section Display Options
These options change the display of entire sections (as opposed to the entries within those sections).
They allow the user to enable or disable an entire section, set the sorting method for that section, and
limit the number of displayed entries for that section. These options are context‐sensitive and
processed in the order given.
‐all
‐noall Include (‐all) or exclude (‐noall) all of the display sections. The ‐noall option is commonly used
just prior to one or more of the other section options, such that only the listed sections are
displayed.
‐daily
‐nodaily
Include (‐daily) or exclude (‐nodaily) the section of statistics by request date and set the scope
for later ‐sort and ‐top options to this section.
‐hourly
‐nohourly
Include (‐hourly) or exclude (‐nohourly) the section of statistics by request hour and set the
scope for later ‐sort and ‐top options to this section.
‐domain
‐nodomain
Include (‐domain) or exclude (‐nodomain) the section of statistics by the client's Internet domain
and set the scope for later ‐sort and ‐top options to this section.
‐subdomain
‐nosubdomain
Include (‐subdomain) or exclude (‐nosubdomain) the section of statistics by the client's Internet
subdomain (reversed for display) and set the scope for later ‐sort and ‐top options to this
section.
‐archive
‐noarchive
Include (‐archive) or exclude (‐noarchive) the section of statistics by requested URL/archive and
set the scope for later ‐sort and ‐top options to this section.
‐r
‐ident
‐noident
Include (‐r or ‐ident) or exclude (‐noident) the section of statistics by the identity of the user
(if IdentityCheck is ON) or the authentication userid (if supplied) and set the scope for later
‐sort and ‐top options to this section. DO NOT PUBLISH this information, as that would reveal
security‐related identities and be a violation of privacy. This option is provided for
administrative purposes only.
‐sort (key|byte|req)
Sort this section by its primary key, the number of bytes transmitted, or the number of requests
received. [‐sort key]
‐top N Display only the top N entries for this section. This option assumes that the ‐sort option has
been set to either bytes or requests.
‐both Display both the top N entries for this section [10, sorted by requests], and then the full
section (all entries) sorted by key.
Search Options
These options are used to limit the analysis to requests matching a pattern. The pattern is supplied in
the form of a perl regular expression, except that the characters "+" and "." are escaped automatically
unless the ‐noescape option is given. Enclose the pattern in single‐quotes to prevent the command shell
from interpreting some special characters.
Multiple occurrences of the same option results in an OR‐ing of the regular expressions. Search options
are only applied to logfile entries; any summary files input must have been created with the same search
options.
‐a regexp
‐A regexp
Include (‐a) or exclude (‐A) all requests containing a hostname/IP address matching the given perl
regular expression.
‐c regexp
‐C regexp
Include (‐c) or exclude (‐C) all requests resulting in an HTTP status code matching the given perl
regular expression.
‐d regexp
‐D regexp
Include (‐d) or exclude (‐D) all requests occurring on a date (e.g., "Feb 2 1994") matching the
given perl regular expression.
‐t regexp
‐T regexp
Include (‐t) or exclude (‐T) all requests occurring during the hour (e.g., "23" is 11pm ‐ 12pm)
matching the given perl regular expression.
‐m regexp
‐M regexp
Include (‐m) or exclude (‐M) all requests using an HTTP method (e.g., "HEAD") matching the given
perl regular expression.
‐n regexp
‐N regexp
Include (‐n) or exclude (‐N) all requests on a URL (archive name) matching the given perl regular
expression.
‐noescape
Do not escape the special characters ("+" and ".") in the remaining search options.
INPUT
After parsing the options, the remaining arguments on the command‐line are treated as input arguments and
are read in the order given. If no input arguments are given, the configured default logfile is read
[+].
‐ Read from standard input (STDIN).
+ Read the default logfile. [as configured]
filename...
Read the given file and determine from the first line whether it is a previous output summary or a
CLF logfile. If the filename's extension indicates that is is compressed (gz|z|Z), then pipe it
through the configured decompression program [gunzip ‐c] first. Summary files must have been
created with the same (or similar) configuration and command‐line options as the currently running
program; if not, weird things will happen.
USAGE
wwwstat is used for many purposes:
o as a diagnostic utility for measuring server activity, finding incorrect URL references, and
detecting attempted misuse of the server;
o as a public relations tool for measuring technology or information transfer (i.e., Is the message
getting out? To the right people?);
o as an archival tool for tracking web usage over time without storing the entire logfile; and,
o most often, as an easy mechanism for justifying all the hard work that went into creating the web
content that people out there are requesting.
In most cases, wwwstat is run on a periodic basis (nightly, weekly, and/or monthly) by a wrapper program
as a crontab entry shortly after midnight, typically in conjunction with rotating the current logfile.
The output is usually directed to a temporary file which can later be moved to a published location. The
temporary file is necessary to avoid erasing your published file during wwwstat's processing (which would
look very odd if someone tried to GET it from your web).
wwwstat can be run as a CGI script (‐cgi), but that is not recommended unless the input logfile is very
small.
All of the command‐line options, and a few options that are not available from the command‐line, can be
changed within the user and system configuration files (see wwwstat.rc). These files are actually perl
library modules which are executed as part of the program's initialization. The example provided with
the distribution includes complete documentation on what variables can be set and their range of values.
Perl Regular Expressions
The Search Options and many of the configuration file settings allow for full use of perl regular
expressions (with the exception that the ‐a, ‐A, ‐n and ‐N options treat '+' and '.' characters as
normal alphabetic characters unless they are preceded by the ‐noescape option). Most people only need to
know the following special characters:
^ at start of pattern, means "starts with pattern".
$ at end of pattern, means "ends with pattern".
(...) groups pattern elements as a single element.
? matches preceding element zero or one times.
* matches preceding element zero or more times.
+ matches preceding element one or more times.
. matches any single character.
[...] denotes a class of characters to match. [^...] negates the class. Inside a class, '‐' indicates
a range of characters.
(A|B|C) matches if A or B or C matches.
Depending on your command shell, some special characters may need to be escaped on the command line or
enclosed in single‐quotes to avoid shell interpretation.
EXAMPLES
Summarize requests from commercial domains.
wwwstat ‐a '.com$'
Summarize requests from the host kiwi.ics.uci.edu
wwwstat ‐a '^kiwi.ics.uci.edu$'
Summarize requests not from kiwi.ics.uci.edu
wwwstat ‐A '^kiwi.ics.uci.edu$'
Summarize requests resulting in temporary redirects
wwwstat ‐c '302'
Summarize requests resulting in server errors
wwwstat ‐c '^5'
Summarize unsuccessful requests
wwwstat ‐C '^2' ‐C '304'
Summarize requests in first week of the month
wwwstat ‐d ' [1‐7] '
Summarize requests in second week of the month
wwwstat ‐d ' ([89]|1[0‐4]) '
Summarize requests in third week of the month
wwwstat ‐d ' (1[5‐9]|2[01]) '
Summarize requests in fourth week of the month
wwwstat ‐d ' 2[2‐8] '
Summarize requests in leftover days of the month
wwwstat ‐d ' (29|30|31) '
Summarize requests in February
wwwstat ‐d 'Feb'
Summarize requests in year 1994
wwwstat ‐d '1994'
Summarize requests not in April
wwwstat ‐D 'Apr'
Summarize requests between midnight and 1am
wwwstat ‐t '00'
Summarize requests not received between noon and 1pm
wwwstat ‐T '12'
Summarize requests with a gif extension
wwwstat ‐n '.gif$'
Summarize requests under user's URL
wwwstat ‐n '^/~user/'
Summarize requests not under "hidden" paths
wwwstat ‐N '/hidden/'
ENVIRONMENT
HOME Location of user's home directory, placed on INC path.
LOGDIR Used instead of HOME if latter is undefined.
PERLLIB A colon‐separated list of directories in which to look for include and configuration files.
FILES
Unless a pathname is supplied, the configuration files are obtained from the current directory, the
user's home directory (HOME or LOGDIR), the standard library path (PERLLIB), and the directory indicated
by the command pathname (in that order).
.wwwstatrc User configuration file.
wwwstat.rc System configuration file.
domains.pl Mapping of Internet domain to country or organization.
dnscache.dir
dnscache.pag DBM files for persistent DNS cache.
SEE ALSO
crontab(1), gwstat(1), httpd(1m), perl(1), splitlog(1)
More info and the latest version of wwwstat can be obtained from
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/wwwstat/
ftp://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/wwwstat/
If you have any suggestions, bug reports, fixes, or enhancements, please join the <wwwstat‐
users@ics.uci.edu> mailing list by sending e‐mail with "subscribe" in the subject of the message to the
request address <wwwstat‐users‐request@ics.uci.edu>. The list is archived at the above address.
More About HTTP
HTTP/1.1 Proposed Standard
R. Fielding, J. Gettys, J. C. Mogul, H. Frystyk, and T. Berners‐Lee. "Hypertext Transfer Protocol
‐‐ HTTP/1.1", U.C. Irvine, DEC, MIT/LCS, August 1996.
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/
More About Perl
The Perl Language Home Page
http://www.perl.com/perl/index.html
Johan Vromans' Perl Reference Guide
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jvromans/perlref.html
DIAGNOSTICS
See also the Diagnostic Options above.
"[none] to [none]" dates
wwwstat did not find any matching data to summarize. If you get such an empty summary, it means
that either: 1) there was no valid data (the input files are all invalid or empty), or 2) none of
the data matched the search options given. Try using the ‐e option to show invalid data.
100% unresolved
If the subdomain section indicates that all of the client requests come from unresolved hostnames
(IP addresses), this probably means that your server is running without DNS resolution (common for
very busy sites). You can use the ‐dns option to have wwwstat perform the hostname lookups. If
100% of the hosts are still unresolved with the ‐dns option in effect, then it may be that all of
the clients accessing your server are doing so from temporary SLIP/PPP addresses without DNS
names, or it may be a problem with wwwstat's DNS cache (delete the cache files), with your
system's DNS software (contact your system administrator), or with your network connection.
NOTES
Hits vs Requests vs Visitors
wwwstat counts HTTP requests received by the server. When a request is successful, it is often referred
to as a "hit". Retrieving a single image is one GET request. Retrieving an HTML page is also one GET
request, but that does not include the separate requests made for in‐line images or related objects.
Checking to see if a cached image is still valid (a HEAD or conditional GET) is also one request.
In all sections except the archive section, wwwstat shows the statistics for all requests (successful or
not). In the archive section, it normally shows all non‐successful requests under a special category for
the status code and only successful requests (hits) under the URL or archive tree associated with the
request. However, this grouping of non‐successful requests is disabled when wwwstat is used with the
search options ‐n, ‐c, and ‐C, since those options are normally used for finding error conditions.
wwwstat does not count "visitors" ‐‐ individual people or programs making the requests. HTTP does not, by
default, provide any information that can be accurately correlated to an individual person, though it is
possible (in an unreliable manner) to use HTTP extensions and request profiles as a means of tracking
individual client programs. Such tracking requires extensive resources (memory and diskspace) and is
often considered a violation of privacy.
With the exception of the ident section, wwwstat does not reveal information about the individual people
making requests. Unless the output is limited to a specific URL or a specific hostname, wwwstat's output
does not connect the requester to the URL being requested.
Common Logfile Format
The httpd common logfile format (CLF) was defined in early 1994 as the result of discussions among server
and access_log analyzer developers (Roy Fielding, John Franks, Kevin Hughes, Ari Luotonen, Rob McCool,
and Tony Sanders) on how to make it easier for analysis tools to be used across multiple servers. The
format is:
remote_host ident authuser [date‐time zone] "Request‐Line" Status‐Code bytes
where means
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
remote_host Client DNS hostname or IP address
ident Identity check token or "‐"
authuser Authorization user‐id or "‐"
date‐time dd/Mmm/yyyy:hh:mm:ss
zone +dddd or ‐dddd
Request‐Line The first line of the HTTP request, which normally includes the method, URL, and HTTP‐
version.
Status‐Code Response status from server or "‐"
bytes Size of Entity‐Body transmitted or "‐"
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
with each field separated by a single space (it turns out that problems occur if the ident token contains
a space, which was not anticipated by the original designers).
LIMITATIONS
wwwstat cannot be more accurate than its input.
The common logfile format does not include the amount of bytes transferred in HTTP header fields and in
error responses. wwwstat attempts to estimate those bytes based on the response code. Although the
built‐in estimates will suffice for most applications, your results will be more accurate if the
estimates are customized for the particular server software that generated the logfile.
Modern httpd servers have extended the CLF to include additional fields (Referer and User‐Agent) or to
make the entire format configurable. Although wwwstat is able to read logfiles which append information
to the CLF, it will not make use of that additional information. However, wwwstat is written in perl, so
if you want to parse a different format all you have to do is change the parsing code.
wwwstat does not do anything with Referer [sic] or User‐Agent information that may be present in extended
logfiles. In order to do anything interesting with Referer, the program would have to build a Request‐
URI x Referer x Count table, which would require huge gobs of memory and is better done using a separate
program with a persistent database. Naturally, this is easy to do once you learn perl.
AUTHOR
Roy Fielding (fielding@ics.uci.edu), University of California, Irvine. Please do not send questions or
requests to the author, since the number of requests has long since overwhelmed his ability to reply, and
all future support will be through the mailing list (see above).
wwwstat was originally based on a multi‐server statistics program called fwgstat‐0.035 by Jonathan Magid
(jem@sunsite.unc.edu) which, in turn, was heavily based on xferstats (packaged with the version 17 of the
Wuarchive FTP daemon) by Chris Myers (chris@wugate.wustl.edu).
This work has been sponsored in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under Grant Numbers
MDA972‐91‐J‐1010 and F30602‐94‐C‐0218. This software does not necessarily reflect the position or policy
of the U.S. Government and no official endorsement should be inferred.
03 November 1996 wwwstat(1)