Re: [cobalt-users] Webalizer 1.3 on RaQ3i

["Carrie Bartkowiak" <ravencarrie@xxxxxxxx>]

> Sometimes the logging of the stats is stopping for days and/or
weeks. After
> that period they are startin logging again but it could happen that
the days
> without graphing are beeing not recovered afterwards so we have some
"holes"
> in our stats...

Manfred,
Would I be correct in assuming that the sites that have 'holes' are
pretty heavily-trafficked sites?  (How DOES one spell trafficked,
anyway?)
Webalizer normally runs off of the site's web.log (found in the /logs
folder) - and that file has a size limit. So when it reaches the
limit, the logrotate job zips everything up (web.log.1.gz) and starts
fresh - creating a 'hole' in your stats, or older stats disappearing
completely. When Webalizer runs, it scans the web.log and makes fresh
stats - but if that log is suddenly gone and all it has to work with
is the last two days, there will be a 'hole' for everything that got
zipped up before Webalizer had a chance to record it. On one of my
client's sites, they could only keep 2-4 days of stats in Webalizer
before they'd disappear. On another site where traffic comes more in
'bursts' due to ezine advertising, days would disappear, leaving
'holes' like you describe.

This might not be your problem, but here's what fixed mine...
There is a setting in the webalizer.conf file that is named
"Incremental". By default it's turned off (no). Turn it on (yes), and
then in the next section just below that, give the incremental file a
name. (What it suggests is just fine.) Don't forget to uncomment those
lines. What this does is make Webalizer keep its own log (a history)
rather than relying on the web.log. It will only grab the new stuff
from web.log, and record those into its history (webalizer.hist) file.

You might also try renaming webalizer.pl so that it runs *before*
logrotate does - awebalizer.pl for example, so that it can grab the
latest stuff, but without the Incremental value set to "yes", this
will still cause holes once logrotate gets around to gunzipping the
log files.

Hope that helps!
Like I said, it might not be the exact problem you're having, but it
sounds like it and having "Incremental" turned on can't hurt.

CarrieB