W3Perl is a
free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
logfile analyser, which can parse Web/FTP/Mail/CUPS/DHCP/SSH and Squid logfiles. Most major web logfile formats are supported (Web : CLF/ECLF/NECLF on Unix,
IIS/
W3C
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working to ...
on Microsoft ; Mail : Postfix/Sendmail/Exim), as well as split/compressed files. "Page tagging" and counter are also supported if you do not have logfiles access. The output is spread over HTML pages, with graphics and a sortable table. Stats can be run from a single command line or from a web browser.
Features
Essential features like hosts, pages, scripts, countries, filetype, traffic, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly,
referrer
In HTTP, "" (a misspelling of Referrer) is an optional HTTP header field that identifies the address of the web page (i.e., the URI or IRI), from which the resource has been requested. By checking the referrer, the server providing the new web p ...
,
user agent
In computing, a user agent is any software, acting on behalf of a user, which "retrieves, renders and facilitates end-user interaction with Web content". A user agent is therefore a special kind of software agent.
Some prominent examples of us ...
, and error are available along with other specific W3Perl stats like real-time and session stats.
Administration
W3Perl has an administration interface which allows building configuration files from a web interface. One can also manage configuration files, package updates, run scripts, and see stats output.
Cross-platform availability
Written in
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...
, W3Perl can be installed on any
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
that supports Perl. As such, it can be installed on Unix, Windows or Mac OS X. An installer is available for Windows and Mac OS X.
Licensing
W3Perl is licensed under the
GNU
GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...
GPL
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...
.
Security considerations
Running the scripts from the administration interface should be restricted with login/password. Blocking
referrer spam
Referrer spam (also known as referral spam, log spam or referrer bombing) is a kind of spamdexing (spamming aimed at search engines). The technique involves making repeated web site requests using a fake referrer URL to the site the spammer wis ...
have been added but as it is based on a blacklist, the file must be updated regularly. Real-time stats can only run once to prevent overloading the server.
Alternatives
There are other free tools:
* Analog is written in C (and therefore very fast) but it lacks some features like session statistics.
* AWStats has a large user base, is very powerful but still lacks some of the features of W3Perl.
* Piwik is a set of scripts in PHP using a Mysql database.
See also
*
Data logging
A data logger (also datalogger or data recorder) is an electronic device that records data over time or about location either with a built-in instrument or sensor or via external instruments and sensors. Increasingly, but not entirely, they ar ...
*
List of web analytics software
This is a list of web analytics software used to collect and display data about visiting website users.
Self-hosted software Free / Open source (FLOSS)
This is a comparison table of web analytics software released under a free software license. ...
*
Server log
In computing, logging is the act of keeping a log of events that occur in a computer system, such as problems, errors or just information on current operations. These events may occur in the operating system or in other software. A message or lo ...
*
Web analytics
Web analytics is the measurement, data collection, collection, analysis, and reporting of web Data (computing), data to understand and optimize web usage. Web analytics is not just a process for measuring web traffic but can be used as a tool fo ...
*
Web log analysis software Web log analysis software (also called a web log analyzer) is a kind of web analytics software that parses a server log file from a web server, and based on the values contained in the log file, derives indicators about when, how, and by whom a we ...
References
External links
*
{{Perl
Web analytics
Perl software
Free software programmed in Perl
Free web analytics software
Web technology