Readme for analog3.0

Frequently asked questions

1. When I try and compile analog, it gives me an error.
2. Analog just runs for a moment and then quits.
3. Analog didn't write the logfile when I ran it.
   See the section entitled Starting to use analog.
4. Is analog Year 2000 compatible?
   Yes (and so are all previous versions). It works properly for dates between 1970 & 2069 inclusive.
5. My stats have stopped updating.
6. My stats have reset to zero.
   If your ISP runs analog for you, you'll have to ask them.
7. How do I find out the number of hits from your data?
   I don't use the word hits, because people use it in different ways, so it's misleading. I use requests for the number of transfers of any type of file (text, graphics, ...), and page requests for the number of transfers of HTML pages. See the section on Analog's definitions for more information.
8. Why doesn't the Daily Report only show the last six weeks?
   This is controlled by the FULLDAYROWS command.
9. How do I get information on just my pages, not everybody's?
10. How do I ignore accesses from my site?
    Use the FILEINCLUDE command or HOSTEXCLUDE command respectively.
11. I want to make several different statistics pages. Do I have to install several copies of analog?
    No. Just install it once, and run it with different configuration files.
12. Can I get data on individual visitors, or visits, to my site?
    No, it's not technically possible, and don't believe any program which tells you it is. See the section on How the web works for details.
13. I want to see the total number of hits from my organisation in the Host Report.
    You can see this in the Domain Report if you use the SUBDOMAIN command.
14. Do I have to save all my old logfiles?
    This is answered in the section about Cache files.
15. What does this error (or warning) mean?
    See the section on Errors and warnings.
16. Why doesn't analog agree with the counter on my page?
    There are lots of possible reasons. Do they both start from the same date? Are you just looking at requests for that one page with analog, not for all your other pages and graphics? Also, analog will record all requests to that page; if it's a graphic, your counter will only measure requests from people on graphical browsers that reached that place on the page.
17. How can I do such-and-such with a commandline option?
    Use the +C option to put any configuration command on the commandline.
18. Why does the form interface give "Document Returned no Data"?
    If it doesn't happen for a while, then probably the server is giving up before the analog process has finished running. Increase the timeout interval on the server.
19. The images don't appear when running analog from the form interface.
    You probably need to change the IMAGEDIR. If the images are in your /cgi-bin/ directory, the server will try to execute them instead of just sending them out.
20. Can I find out the number of hosts that have accessed each file?
21. Can I find out the number of hosts visiting on each day?
    No; it would require storing too much data (all host/file pairs, or all host/day pairs). If there's a particular file you're interested in, use FILEINCLUDE to restrict the analysis to only that file. If there's a particular day you're interested in, use FROM and TO to restrict the analysis to only that day.
22. How can I run analog every day?
    This depends on your particular machine. On Unix, you need to run analog as a cron job (see "man cron"). This is my cron command:
    20 1 * * * $HOME/misc/analog
    On Windows NT you can do the same with the at command, but only an administrator can run at. On Windows 95 it's not possible.
    On Mac, there are programs called Cron or CronoTask to do this.
23. How can I specify different logfiles from the form interface?
    Just add a new field to the form with name=lo
24. Why are directories listed in the request report?
    They are not directories, they are pages with the same name as the directory. For example, I have a directory called /analog/ and a page called /analog/ (which is the same as /analog/index.html).
25. Why don't you just use one image, and scale it with the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes?
    The WIDTH and HEIGHT only tell the browser what size the image will be. They cannot be used for scaling the image, whatever some browsers do.
26. There is a CTRL-Z character in my logfile, and analog stops reading there.
    Analog is behaving correctly. Under Windows, CTRL-Z (ASCII 26) signifies end-of-file in a text file.
27. Why do I only get "unresolved numerical addresses" in the domain report?
    Your server only records the numerical IP address of the hosts that contact you, not their names. Read the section about DNS lookups.
28. Couldn't you do the DNS lookups faster with threads?
    The problem is, the standard commands for DNS lookups are not thread-safe on most Unices.
29. How about an operating system report?
    Unfortunately, this is not possible. Many browsers record their operating system in your browser log, but not all do, and those that do don't always record it in a consistent format.
30. How do I make a link on my page that runs analog?
    Link to the analform program, with the desired options. But be careful about the load on your server.
31. My server lists local names in the logfile. Can you put a common suffix on them automatically?
    This wouldn't be a good idea, because things like "unknown" would get the suffix. You can always add them using HOSTALIAS.
32. Why don't you make proper graphs or tables?
    Because lots of people then couldn't read them. Analog produces HTML 2.0 output so that people with any browser can read it. Also, I don't want to assume that people have any particular graphics creation tools.
33. Can I change the background colour of my output?
    Sadly not. Colours only exist in HTML 3.2, not HTML 2.0. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to produce the bar charts in my time reports in HTML 3.2.
34. Can you extrapolate from the current month's partial data to produce a prediction for the whole month, based on the rate so far?
    No. There are too many problems in trying to produce anything sensible, especially near the beginning of the month. Different days of the week and different times of day cause lots of problems. I would prefer to produce raw accurate data than suspect derived data.
35. Can you extend the Domain Report to say which US states people visited from?
    No. Some programs pretend to do this, but you can only tell which state the computer they're using is in, which may be quite different from where the user is for ISP's or other large organisations.
36. Can I make multiple reports with one pass through the logfile?
    Not at the moment. I want to do this in a future version, but it will require some considerable work.
37. I ran out of memory when trying to run analog. What can I do?
    See the section on Coping with low memory.
38. You're processing 10,000,000 requests in under 10 minutes. Why is mine much slower?
39. Analog appears to stall.
    If you have DNS lookups on, they are very slow. Otherwise, it probably depends on the speed of your computer and disks, and what other programs are running at the same time. You can use the PROGRESSFREQ command to see if it's really stalled or whether it's just being slow.
40. I host lots of virtual domains. How should I set up analog?
    In my opinion, the best thing is to log each virtual server to a different logfile and analyse them independently. If you log them all to the same logfile, then make sure to log the virtual host name on each line, and use analog's VHOSTINCLUDE command to pick out the lines you want.
41. Why don't you sell analog?
    I didn't write analog for the money, and I'm happy just to see people use it. I haven't got time to support it commercially, and I can't use my academic account for commercial purposes. Also, by making it freeware, lots of people send me ideas and code to include in future versions. (Of course, if you want to send me money, or gifts in kind, or even just postcards...).

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