3 ms·

Despite the emphasis on goaccess’s visual mode, keep in mind that “ While the terminal output is the default output, it has the capability to generate a complet

Despite the emphasis on goaccess’s visual mode, keep in mind that “ While the terminal output is the default output, it has the capability to generate a complete, self-contained real-time HTML report (great for analytics, monitoring and data visualization)”. It was a great replacement for my aging webalizer setup which in turn had been replaced by google analytics. This is for a personal site and at some point I realized I cared less about having those very detailed google metrics (which I never checked anyway) than about making my site more responsive and less invasive. I nixed google analytics and haven’t looked back; still have basic metrics thanks to goaccess.

noxvilleza 5y ago
What's quite nice with the HTML output view is that it stores stats even if the underlying log files are rotated/deleted - however if the goaccess process ends (like if your server needs to restart) you lose all the historic context.
- elboulangero 5y ago
  I run goaccess once a day to analyze log files. There's an option to store the result in goaccess database. So nothing is never lost and I accumulate stats for as long as I want. I detailed that in a (lengthy) blog post if you're interested: https://arnaudr.io/2020/08/10/goaccess-14-a-detailed-tutorial/ https://arnaudr.io/2020/08/10/goaccess-14-a-detailed-tutoria...
  - majodev 5y ago
    I can confirm that goaccess databases works great for incrementally regenerating these HTML reports. We currently pipe all logs from all our ingress-nginx LBs every 15 minutes (and grep by virtual host) to goaccess and thus update its reports periodically. Each month, all reports get archived so we can start with a fresh report again. Semi live and super useful without having to use 3rd party services like Google Analytics. The HTML report is self-contained (single file) and thus can easily be shared (or just statically hosted).
  - nkrisc 5y ago
    I love when something I had once been looking for, but seemed so specific I didn't know how to search for it, drops right into my lap. Thank you for this, it is exactly what I've been looking for.
tombrossman 5y ago
The HTML reports are my preferred way of looking at stats, but to make them more useful it's worth taking some additional steps to filter all the garbage traffic. What works for me is: - Use ipset to drop all traffic from certain countries (you pick which works best for you) - Configure fail2ban to 'automagically' drop all IPs requesting .php and wp-admin URLs for a few days - Integrate Piwik/Matomo's 'referrer spam' blocklist into your list of ignored referrers. - Use per-site logging and only log .html hits with a static site to see page views. This approach won't work for everyone and it takes extra sysadmin & Bash scripting skills to achieve, but it works really well with my Jekyll site. I don't receive much traffic on my personal website but my stats page is public and updates hourly with a cronjob. https://www.tombrossman.com/stats/ https://www.tombrossman.com/stats/
- smnscu 5y ago
  Nice photos, thank you for piquing my interest in Jersey https://www.tom.je/ https://www.tom.je/ Also, pretty good advice in this post, bookmarked it.

noxvilleza 5y ago

What's quite nice with the HTML output view is that it stores stats even if the underlying log files are rotated/deleted - however if the goaccess process ends (like if your server needs to restart) you lose all the historic context.

elboulangero 5y ago
I run goaccess once a day to analyze log files. There's an option to store the result in goaccess database. So nothing is never lost and I accumulate stats for as long as I want. I detailed that in a (lengthy) blog post if you're interested: https://arnaudr.io/2020/08/10/goaccess-14-a-detailed-tutorial/ https://arnaudr.io/2020/08/10/goaccess-14-a-detailed-tutoria...
- majodev 5y ago
  I can confirm that goaccess databases works great for incrementally regenerating these HTML reports. We currently pipe all logs from all our ingress-nginx LBs every 15 minutes (and grep by virtual host) to goaccess and thus update its reports periodically. Each month, all reports get archived so we can start with a fresh report again. Semi live and super useful without having to use 3rd party services like Google Analytics. The HTML report is self-contained (single file) and thus can easily be shared (or just statically hosted).
- nkrisc 5y ago
  I love when something I had once been looking for, but seemed so specific I didn't know how to search for it, drops right into my lap. Thank you for this, it is exactly what I've been looking for.

tombrossman 5y ago

The HTML reports are my preferred way of looking at stats, but to make them more useful it's worth taking some additional steps to filter all the garbage traffic. What works for me is: - Use ipset to drop all traffic from certain countries (you pick which works best for you) - Configure fail2ban to 'automagically' drop all IPs requesting .php and wp-admin URLs for a few days - Integrate Piwik/Matomo's 'referrer spam' blocklist into your list of ignored referrers. - Use per-site logging and only log .html hits with a static site to see page views. This approach won't work for everyone and it takes extra sysadmin & Bash scripting skills to achieve, but it works really well with my Jekyll site. I don't receive much traffic on my personal website but my stats page is public and updates hourly with a cronjob. https://www.tombrossman.com/stats/ https://www.tombrossman.com/stats/

smnscu 5y ago
Nice photos, thank you for piquing my interest in Jersey https://www.tom.je/ https://www.tom.je/ Also, pretty good advice in this post, bookmarked it.