How to recalculate AWStats web-statistics using domain logs for previous months in Plesk

Question

How to recalculate AWStats web-statistics using domain logs for previous months?

Answer

Note: The recalculation is only possible if the old logs are present on the server. In case log rotation deleted them, the recalculation will not be possible.

1. Connect to a Plesk server via SSH.

2. Download and unpack the script:

   # wget https://plesk.zendesk.com/hc/article_attachments/360001568074/rebuild_awstats.tar.gz 
   # tar -xzvf rebuild_awstats.tar.gz

   • For Ubuntu 14.04, a symbolic link should be created:

     # ln -s /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/logresolvemerge /usr/share/doc/awstats/examples/logresolvemerge.pl

3. Run this command to show help message:

   # ./rebuild_awstats.sh
   
   Usage: ./rebuild_awstats.sh [options] [<domains...>]
   
   Options:
       -A
       --all-domains
           Process all domains. If this option is not specified, then list of
           domains to process must be provided.
   
       -F
       --from-scratch
           Remove contents of webstat/ and webstat-ssl/ directories before
           rebuilding statistics pages (originals are saved with numeric
           suffix). Statistics will be rebuilt from logs only, only for
           period covered by log files. If this parameter is not used, then
           statistics is recalculated beginning on the month on which log files
           start (if log starts in the middle of the month, then statistics
           for first half of the month will not be present.)
   
       -h
       --help
           This message.

4. Rebuild web-statistics for a domain using the command:

   # ./rebuild_awstats.sh example.com

How script works

1. For each specified domain (or all domains, if the -A option is used), the script will memorize the log file's start date.

2. Then, it will remove AWStats data files for the months covered by the log files and rebuild them with corresponding information.

3. Finally, the script will build static pages with statistics summary for each month covered by the log files.

If the -F option is used, all AWStats data will be removed and new files will be generated using only the information stored in the log files.

In order to merge web-statistics which was created from scratch with AWStats statistics from another directory, the corresponding .txt file and the directory should be copied from the webstat directory. For example, statistics of a domain for December were created from scratch. In this case, the following files should be copied from /var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/statistics/webstat/:

• A .txt file dated by December 2018: awstats122018.example.com-http.txt
• A directory dated by December 2018: 2018-12

Note: It is important to copy a .txt file, otherwise new statistics (from scratch) might be erased.

Output example

For every processed domain, the script will report this message:

CONFIG_TEXT: === example.com
    Saving: webstat* --> webstat*.3
    Logs begin on Apr 18 2018
        access_log* (new/old/corrupted): 9/0/0
        access_ssl_log* (new/old/corrupted): 71/0/0
    Rebuilding static pages: 2018-04 2018-05 2018-06 2018-07

Restoring from a backup

The message "Saving: webstat* --> webstat*.3 " in the output above shows that the original directories are saved with a numeric suffix (the suffix is increased if the destination directory already exists). This makes it possible to roll-back to old AWStats statistics if needed.

In case the script was launched to recalculate statistics from scratch (with -F flag), which removes old web-statistics that is not stored in log files, it is possible to restore it from the backup that was created by the script.

Troubleshooting

If the script fails with one of the following error messages, visit this KB article for troubleshooting:

CONFIG_TEXT: ./rebuild_awstats.sh: line 210: /usr/share/awstats/tools/logresolvemerge.pl: No such file or directory
ERROR: failed to merge access_log*. Skipping domain.

OR

CONFIG_TEXT: ERROR /usr/share/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin/awstats.pl cannot be executed.

OR

CONFIG_TEXT: ERROR /usr/lib/cgi-bin/awstats/awstats.pl cannot be executed