AWstats, Plesk 8 and suexec

recently handgestrickt tried to install the newest version of AWstats following our internal tutorial. later while testing, we got a lot of "Error 500: Premature end of script headers" and in tail -10 /var/log/apache/suexec.log we found something like "command not in doc root". this problem was hard to solve, because AWstats lied in /usr/local/awstats/ and the document root for my server was /srv/www/vhosts.

the solution is to delete the entries AWstats makes in the /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and create symbolic links in your virtual hosts httpdocs and httpsdocs-folder to the AWstats-directories needed. then in your vhost.conf and vhost_ssl.conf you have to make entries to the symbolic links. this did the job for us.

details:

• attention! all the following steps must be done as root.
• download AWstats at http://awstats.sourceforge.net and save the archive in /usr/local/.
• unpack and delete the archive. the asterix can be replaced with the version-number.

  gzip -d awstats*.tgz
  tar -xf awstats*.tar
  rm awstats*.tar
  mv awstats* awstats
  cd awstats/tools/

• create the folders /etc/awstats and var/lib/awstats

  mkdir /etc/awstats
  mkdir /var/lib/awstats

• in the folder /usr/local/awstats/tools/ is a perl script called awstats_configure.pl. run this and follow the questions.

  perl awstats_configure.pl

• in the Apache-configuration-folder, usually /etc/httpd/ or /etc/apache2/ check the file httpd.conf for entries that AWstats made. in the Apache-configuration check for an entry CustomLog with a value of combined. if all this is present, everything went fine.
• change to /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin/ and copy awstats.model.conf to /etc/awstats/.
• change to /etc/awstats/ and rename awstats.model.conf to your desired virtual hosts name. then copy this file and create symbolic for every virtual host on your server. attention! the subdomain www also needs a separate file. to understand the way AWstats works: everytime the AWstats-scripts are invoked by HTTP, the scripts take the configuration file for the hostname that has been accessed.

  mv awstats.model.conf awstats.foo.com.conf
  ln -s awstats.foo.com.conf awstats.www.foo.com.conf
  cp awstats.foo.com.conf awstats.foo2.com.conf
  ln -s awstats.foo2.com.conf awstats.www.foo2.com.conf
  ln -s awstats.foo2.com.conf awstats.webmail.foo2.com.conf
  cp awstats.foo2.com.conf awstats.foo3.com.conf
  ln -s awstats.foo3.com.conf awstats.www.foo3.com.conf
  ...

• now every not symbolic linked configuration-file has to edited.
• first setup the LogFile-directive. here you have to point to the virtual hosts access-logs. it is a little bit tricky if you want to use several logfiles, like you want if you use SSL. for these cases AWstats has some program in /usr/local/awstats/tools/ called logresolvemerge.pl. this program combines logfiles. example:

  LogFile="/var/log/access.log"
  LogFile="/usr/local/awstats/tools/logresolvemerge.pl /var/log/access.log /var/log/access_ssl.log |"
  LogFile="/usr/local/awstats/tools/logresolvemerge.pl /var/log/access*.log |"

• fill the SiteDomain-directive with you virtual hosts name and add all the subdomains and the IP in the HostAliases-directive. example:

  SiteDomain="foo.com"
  HostAliases="foo.com www.foo.com webmail.foo.com bar.foo.com 66.66.66.66"

• now all the logfiles have to be processed by AWstats. in /usr/local/awstats/tools/ there is a program called awstats_updateall.pl. this processes all the configuration-files and all included logfiles. example:

  perl /usr/local/awstats/tools/awstats_updateall.pl
  now

• to automatically run this script you must make a crontab-entry. for daily running:

  crontab -e
  i
  0 * * * * /usr/bin/perl /usr/local/awstats/tools/awstats_updateall.pl now
  :w
  :x

  for hourly running:

  crontab -e
  i
  0 */12 * * * /usr/bin/perl /usr/local/awstats/tools/awstats_updateall.pl now
  :w
  :x

• now you can run AWstats in your browser by typing: http://foo.com/awstats/awstats.pl

• download the GeoIP C library and the Perl-Module Geo::IP. additionally make sure that zlib-devel is installed on your system.
• first compile the C library:

  gzip -d GeoIP*.tar.gz
  tar -xf GeoIP*.tar
  rm GeoIP*.tar
  cd GeoIP*
  ./configure --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/usr
  make
  make install
  cd ..
  rm -R GeoIP*

• then compile the Perl-module:

  gzip -d Geo-IP*.tar.gz
  tar -xf Geo-IP*.tar
  rm Geo-IP*.tar
  cd Geo-IP*
  perl Makefile.PL LIBS='-L/usr/lib' INC='-I/usr/include'
  make
  make install
  cd ..
  rm -R Geo-IP*

• in all your AWstats configuration-files in /etc/awstats/ you have to uncomment this line:

  LoadPlugin="geoip GEOIP_STANDARD /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat"

• delete the entries AWstats makes in the /etc/apache2/httpd.conf.
• assuming that you have no interest in compiling your apache completely new, the workaround starts with making symbolic links in every virtual hosts httpdocs- and if you use SSL also in your httpsdocs-folder:

  cd /srv/www/vhosts/foo.com/httpdocs
  ln -sd /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/classes/awstatsclasses
  ln -sd /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/css/ awstatscss
  ln -sd /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/icon/awstatsicons
  ln -sd /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin awstats
  cd /srv/www/vhosts/foo.com/httpsdocs
  ln -sd /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/classes/awstatsclasses
  ln -sd /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/css/ awstatscss
  ln -sd /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/icon/awstatsicons
  ln -sd /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot/cgi-bin awstats

• now in your vhost.conf and vhost_ssl.conf make the following entries:
  vhost.conf:

  ScriptAlias /awstats/ "/srv/www/vhosts/foo.com/httpdocs/awstats/"
  <Directory "/srv/www/vhosts/foo.com/httpdocs/awstats/">
          Options none
          AllowOverride None
          Order allow,deny
          Allow from all
  </Directory>

  vhost_ssl.conf:

  ScriptAlias /awstats/ "/srv/www/vhosts/foo.com/httpsdocs/awstats/"
  <Directory "/srv/www/vhosts/foo.com/httpsdocs/awstats/">
          Options none
          AllowOverride None
          Order allow,deny
          Allow from all
  </Directory>

• now run the Plesk update script:

  /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/websrvmng -a -v

• restart Apache2:

  /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

• now you can run AWstats in your browser by typing: http://foo.com/awstats/awstats.pl

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