awstats

TLDR

Update statistics for a virtual host

$ awstats -config [virtualhostname] -update

Generate HTML report for a virtual host

$ awstats -config [virtualhostname] -output

Update statistics and generate report in one command

$ awstats -config [virtualhostname] -update -output

Generate report for a specific month

$ awstats -config [virtualhostname] -output -month [01] -year [2024]

Display help and usage information

$ awstats -h

SYNOPSIS

awstats -config virtualhostname [OPTIONS]

AWStats (Advanced Web Statistics) is a powerful log file analyzer that generates advanced web, streaming, FTP, or mail server statistics in graphical web pages. It processes log files to provide detailed information about visitors, pages, hits, search engines, keywords, robots, broken links, and more.
AWStats works both as a CGI script and from the command line. It uses a partial information file to efficiently process large log files incrementally. The tool supports log formats from major server software including Apache (NCSA combined/XLF/ELF or common/CLF format), IIS (W3C log format), and various proxy, streaming, and mail servers.
Configuration files are searched in order: awstats._virtualhostname_.conf, awstats.conf, or a full path. These must be located in /etc/awstats, /usr/local/etc/awstats, or /etc.

PARAMETERS

-config virtualhostname

Specify the virtual host name to select the configuration file.

-update

Update statistics from the log file (default action).

-output

Generate the main HTML report. Statistics are only updated if -update is also specified.

-month MM

Specify month for report output (01-12).

-year YYYY

Specify year for report output.

-h

Display usage information.

ENVIRONMENT

AWSTATS_FORCE_CONFIG

If defined, AWStats uses this value as the config regardless of command line.

CAVEATS

AWStats requires Perl with the Encode module. The configuration file must be properly set up with log file paths and site information before running. Statistics are cumulative, so processing the same log entries multiple times will produce incorrect results unless using AWStats' built-in tracking of processed entries.

HISTORY

AWStats was created by Laurent Destailleur and first released in 2000. It became one of the most popular open-source web analytics tools before the rise of JavaScript-based analytics like Google Analytics. The project continues to be maintained on SourceForge and GitHub, providing server-side log analysis that doesn't require JavaScript or client-side tracking.