NT servers

Required softs You will need first to install ActivePerl to run the stats package.


Installation First select which servers you are using : IIS or Apache.


IIS server
  • First STAGE : Install the scripts

    - Run w3perl-iis.exe
    - If you don't find any cgi-bin directory inside your wwwroot tree, something goes wrong with installation. Edit Config.txt, on the last line, you will find the script to launch, copy and paste the command to your shell. A cgi-bin directory will be created.
    - Then use your IIS server administration tool to change the new created cgi-bin directory properties. It should be enable to run scripts and executable within.
    - Check that the directories /w3perl/, /w3perl/config/ and /w3perl/resources/admin/ are writable by everyone (IIS in fact)

  • 2nd STAGE : Build configuration file

    - Now use your opened browser to http://localhost/w3perl/admin/ to build a configuration file.
    - Click on Make configuration file and follow the procedures outlined. By filling in the details you will create a file called config.pl
    - Once created, look for this file in /config/config.pl and move it to your /cgi-bin/w3perl/ directory.

  • 3rd STAGE : Ready

    - You should now be able to analyse your logs.
    - In admin go through the Launch area links that will start your statistics from zero.
    - Then run the incremental statistics function every week to accumulate your statistics.
    - In order to read them go to http://your_url/w3perl/
    - You can use at to schedule the scripts run, NT server can't fork processes as Unix do (so cron-w3perl.pl is no use for you).

  • Problem ?

    If you have any trouble with w3perl, please check installation was successful. Edit the /w3perl/install.log and /w3perl/Config.txt files. First one is from GhostInstaller and the last one is the configuration parameters which will be use for w3perl installation. If you find some Unix path inside Config.txt, then you should check the /cgi-bin/ directory have been created (permission write for /Inetpub/).


  • Apache server As I'm not able to get the installed apache version from the register database, you will have to use the unix package.
    You can use '/' instead of the NT '\' directory separator as ActivePerl is able to convert them on the fly.

  • First STAGE : Install the scripts

    - Download the w3perl.tar.gz package and extract it in your wwwroot directory. A new sub directory called w3perl will be there now.
    - Inside you'll find an 'install.pl' perl file. Edit it with your Notepad.
    - The first line should be your ActivePerl bin path so change the default #!/usr/bin/perl to something like C:/Perl/bin/perl.exe
    - then change the $pathcgi and $pathw3perl according to your Apache installation.
    $pathcgi is the directory where your cgi script should be located (should be something like $pathcgi = "C:/Apache/www/cgi-bin/w3perl/"; if your cgi-bin is C:/Apache/www/cgi-bin/).
    Finally change $pathw3perl which should be the directory where w3perl have been extracted (something like $pathw3perl = "C:/Apache/www/w3perl";)
    Usual IIS values are $pathcgi = "C:/Inetpub/wwwroot/cgi-bin/w3perl"; and $pathw3perl = "C:/Inetpub/wwwroot/w3perl"; (change disk letter if required).
    - Click on this file. You'll see output describing the installation process.

  • 2nd STAGE : Graphic tool installation

    - If you want a Graphical display of your statistics you need a programme called FLY
    - Go to http://martin.gleeson.com/fly/ and download the binary file for NT
    - Place this in your cgi-bin.
    - Remember where you put it because you will have to fill that in during the configuration process.
    - If you cannot get hold of a copy, the programme will still work except you won't be able to see some nice histograms and pie charts.

  • 3rd STAGE : Build configuration file

    - Now use your opened browser to http://localhost/w3perl/admin/ to build a configuration file.
    - Click on Make configuration file and follow the procedures outlined. By filling in the details you will create a file called config.pl
    - Once created, look for this file in /config/config.pl and move it to your /cgi-bin/w3perl/ directory.

  • 4rd STAGE : Ready

    - You should now be able to analyse your logs.
    - In admin go through the Launch area links that will start your statistics from zero.
    - Then run the incremental statistics function every week to accumulate your statistics.
    - In order to read them go to http://your_url/w3perl/
    - You can use at to schedule the scripts run, NT server can't fork processes as Unix do (so cron-w3perl.pl is no use for you).

  • Problem ?

    If you have any trouble with w3perl, please check installation was successful. You can contact me if you have serious trouble.


  • Limitations NT server can produce CLF (Common Logfile Format), IIS format or Extended W3C format. W3Perl work with both output, just select the one you want to use in the configuration file. Lots of different date string format are used with IIS server so you'll need to describe your date format in the administration interface. Select one of your logfile and edit it via Notepad to check the month/day/year format used.

    IIS 3.0 have no support for the extended CLF, referrer and agent stats are not available in the standard distribution. Someone emailed me about the ability to use referer and agent log in IIS 3.0 as microsoft provide a dll which is able to store this information in the standard logfile.
    W3Perl can use both IIS 4.0/5.0 or IIS 3.0 (with the patch) logfile to compute referer and agent stats.

    Error are stored in an event database on NT so no file are produced. But you can use redirection with an HTML error page for the different status code and your error pages are logged in the logfile.


    Thanks W3perl have been fully tested on a NT 4.0 server thanks to Alexandre Gefen.

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