Server Configuration Tips

If you need to know how to configure your web server to produce user agent and/or referrer log information, this section will be of interest to you.

Tips for the Apache server

The free Apache web server, which we highly recommend for use on Unix platforms, can be easily configured to produce user agent and referrer logs. You may have already configured your server to log this information in separate log files, and Wusage can analyze these; see the -u and -r command line options.

However, this is not the best way. When your referrer and user agent logs are separate, Wusage cannot display these reports as part of your normal daily, weekly or monthly usage reports. We recommend that you take the following steps:

1. Make sure the mod_log_config Apache "module" is compiled into your server. See the Apache documentation for details.

2. Add the following line to your httpd.conf file in the Apache conf directory:

LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-agent}i\""

(note that referrer must be spelled with only two r's when configuring Apache. For Wusage we chose to go with the spelling in the dictionary.)

3. When you have done both of these things, restart the Apache server on the fly using the kill -1 Unix command.

The Apache server will now log in the usual "common log format," with the addition of two new fields, referrer and user agent.

For Microsoft IIS

Microsoft IIS does not have the option of logging user agent and referrer information in its basic form. However, a filter that adds this capability is freely available. The filter was written by Marc Grossman of Microsoft, who is in no way associated with Boutell.Com, Inc.

1. Follow this link to obtain the filter.

2. Unzip the file.

3. Install the DLL in the scripts folder of your web server. In a typical installation, this is the directory C:\InetSrv\Scripts but your IIS installation may of course be slightly different. You may need to restart the web server before it recognizes the DLL and begins logging in the new format.

The filter is distributed by the ISAPI developer's site, a useful service run by Steven Genusa. We are not associated with the ISAPI developer's site in any way. We do not provide technical support for software not written by Boutell.Com, Inc. The instructions above are the only documentation available.

Once you have the filter installed, Wusage 5.01 will recognize the user agent and referrer fields in the resulting log files. Be sure to turn on the referrers and useragents options in your configuration file.

The original release of Wusage 5.0 for NT did not recognize these new fields. Version 5.01 adds this capability and can be downloaded here. There is no charge to upgrade from 5.0 to 5.01.

For Other Servers

Most web servers can be configured to log in a variety of different formats. For best results, configure your web server to log in the common log format, with the addition of the referrer and user agent fields. The referrer field should come first, followed by the user agent field. Both fields should be in quotes for best results, especially the user agent field, which can contain spaces. If the user agent field cannot be enclosed in quotes, configure your server to place it at the end of the line after all other fields. Wusage will also recognize a virtual server domain name field, if present, and compare this to the servername option to determine whether a particular access is relevant.

Below is an example of the common log format, extended to include referrer and user agent information.

foo.bar.com - - [20/Apr/1997:16:48:44 -0700] "GET /boutell/index.html HTTP/1.0" 200 5898 "http://www.altavista.digital.com/query" "Mozilla/3.01 (Macintosh; I; PPC)"

Please note: Boutell.Com does not provide web server configuration technical support. This information is provided purely as a supplement to the manuals of your web server software.

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