(c) 1997 Scott M Baker
What does it do?
SB Log is intended to process HTTP log files generated by most web providers. SB Log tabulates the data from the log files and generates a statistical report in the form of html documents.
What log files does it work with?
I don't know how standardized web log formats are or which providers use which format, but I have tested it with a few simple providers and it is working fine. I really need user input here on what works and what doesn't. Please let me know how it handles things with your provider. The format that I process looks like this:
194.163.250.33 - - [12/Jun/1997:00:02:07 -0700] "GET /images/bcurprj.jpg HTTP/1.0" 200 1988 194.163.250.65 - - [12/Jun/1997:00:02:07 -0700] "GET /images/bastro.jpg HTTP/1.0" 200 1957 194.163.250.65 - - [12/Jun/1997:00:02:07 -0700] "GET /images/baz.jpg HTTP/1.0" 200 1975
If your log files look like that, then it ought to work fine.
Where do I get log files from?
Different web providers locate them in different places. You can always ask your provider if you can't find them yourself. Usually they are in a fairly obvious location, like "/logs/" or something like that. Log files are normal ascii text and if you view them with notepad/wordpad, should look like the sample above.
Here are the providers I know about:
How do I get log files?
You can usually download them with FTP. I plan on eventually implementing an FTP auto-downloading into SBLog, which will automate the process entirely.
Most of SBLog's setup options are accessed by pressing the <Setup> button. The dialog that you'll get will have the following options:
Input log file (path) name:
This is the location of your log files. You can use a filename here, such as "c:\logs\access.log". You can specify a wildcard specification, such as "c:\logs\access*.*". You can also just specify a directory and SBLog will look for all files located there, such as "c:\logs\".
Output file (path) name:
This is the output filename and/or pathname of the file that will be the root document of the statistics. If you leave it blank, SBLog will output "index.htm" in the current directory. As with above, you may specify a filename, or a complete path, and SBLog will understand it. There are quite a few files emitted by SBLog, so I suggest you place the log files in a directory dedicated to them.
Item Counts:
These are the number of items to include in the "Top" lists. You may set them to whatever you want.
IP Address Resolution:
SBLog can translate the addresses of the people who access your website into descriptive domain/host names. However, this process does take a considerable amount of time, so you may wish to bypass it by selecting "Do not resolve addresses". Selecting the middle option "Only resolve top lists" will only lookup addresses that are actually listed in the top users lists of the report.
SBLog will remember host names from session to session, so once it has looked up one address, it will not need to do it again.
Bar Color:
This allows you to choose what color you want the bars in the graphs to be. It's simply a matter of personal preference. The colors use the files "redbar.bmp", "bluebar.bmp", and "greenbar.bmp", so you can overwrite one of those with your own file if you would like a custom color choice.
These are the normal steps involved in using SBLog:
If you would like to automate use of SBLog, then you can use the "-auto" command line option. This will cause SBLog to automatically start processing log files and automatically exit the program after the report has been generated. Command line parameters may be entered in a variety of ways, depending on the method you are using to launch SBLog. For example, in a windows shortcut, add "-auto" to the end of the Target string (i.e. Target = "c:\Program Files\SBLog\log.exe -auto".
Please see the accompanying file register.htm.
Full details are present in register.htm, but here is a summary:
email: smbaker@primenet.com
www homepage: http://smbaker.simplenet.com/
SBLog page: http://smbaker.simplenet.com/sblog/sblog.html
US Mail:
Scott M Baker
2241 W Labriego
Tucson, Az 85741