Webalizer generates reports based on the configuration options,
set for the site by the Appliance Administrator, when the site is created.
When a log report is requested, Webalizer performs the following
actions to produce the report.
Reads the Webalizer
configuration information (contained in the webalizer.conf file) for the
site. It scans the current directory, by default, for the Webalizer configuration
file, if not found, looks for the file under the /etc directory.
Opens the Web server
configuration file to read necessary information. Webalizer can read both
GZ and ZIP file formats. If it gets a GZ or ZIP format, it decompresses
the file on the fly.
Creates an output directory to
store the log reports. If no directory is specified, the current directory
is used.
Reads the history file (contains
totals for previous months) for the site, if it exists.
If incremental processing of
logs is enabled, then it looks for a data file (named webalizer.current),
containing the “internal state” data of the program, that summarizes the
previous run.
Processes the Web server log
file. If the log file contains information for multiple months,
a separate HTML file is created for each month.
Creates the usage summary (encapsulated
in the index.htm file). The usage summary shows totals by month, and links
to the HTML page of each month.
A new history file is saved to
disk, which contains the totals generated by Webalizer during the current
run.
If incremental processing is
enabled, a data file (webalizer.current) is written, which captures the
“internal state” data at the end of the current run.