Statistically Speaking: AWstats Meets Asterisk and PBX in a Flash

For Asterisk® users that are taking advantage of a LAMP-based install such as PBX in a Flash, Elastix, or even trixbox, you already know the functionality and flexibility boost that Apache, MySQL, and PHP bring to the telephony PBX space. And once you get used to an Internet-enhanced PBX, there’s no turning back. This has only been reinforced with the major ISPs, Comcast and Time Warner to name a couple, that recently have opened up the bandwidth spigot on most broadband connections. As the screenshot shows, our Comcast service at home now provides download speeds between Charleston and Washington, DC that exceed 20Mbps while uploads now are better than a business T1 line. So you not only get better VoIP calls with more flexibility to even support conferencing, but you also can suddenly take advantage of the LAMP tools available on your Asterisk server.

Once you start using your Apache web server for something other than displaying FreePBX screens, you’ll want a statistical tool to monitor access to your server. After years of trying various tools on hosted web accounts, our vote goes to awstats which provides everything you will ever want to know about the folks accessing your web site. So today we’re delighted to bring you a 15-second installer for PBX in a Flash systems, and it should work just as well on other LAMP-based systems that house web documents in /var/www/html and provide a CGI interface in /var/www/cgi-bin. If your settings vary from these, then take a look at the install scripts and tarball before proceeding.

Prerequisites. We’re assuming you already have a perfectly functioning, LAMP-based Asterisk server chugging along. If not, download PBX in a Flash and, using our instructions, install it. Better yet, visit your closest WalMart and pick up a $199 ‘WalMart Special.’ You’ll also find the Everex gPC2 at NewEgg for $10 less. Plus you can skip the sales tax. Once you have a gPC2, use our preconfigured Osgasmatron Build, and you’ll have a fully-functioning, preconfigured system in about 15 minutes. Then come back and join today’s party.

Design Goal. Our objective with this project was to make it simple to install awstats without screwing up anything that already worked. We also didn’t want to add much performance overhead to your server. For that reason, we’ve configured awstats so that you can access it with your web browser and manually update the data any time you like. But we haven’t included a cron job to do it for you each night. A typical data refresh with awstats takes about 10 seconds so this shouldn’t be a life-altering delay for even the most impatient folks out there. It also gives you the very latest stats on demand whenever you’re in the mood. If you look at the screenshot to the left, you’ll see an Update now link on the top line. All you have to do is click on that link to refresh your awstats data anytime you want it. It’ll also show you when you last updated the awstats information. And, for those that didn’t know, all of this data is pulled from the Apache log: /var/log/httpd/access_log. If yours is named something else, then you’re obviously not going to see much in awstats other than a few samples which were generated on our server before we bundled things up.

Special Thanks. Before we walk you through the install process, let us take a moment to thank Chris Hope for a couple of great articles about awstats. If you want more detail on the inner workings of the application, then read his Installing AWStats on CentOS and Installing Geo IP PurePerl articles. We ended up not making some of the Apache configuration changes he recommended because everything worked without the mods. The major changes in our setup were the result of components being in different places on our Asterisk server. And we had to take into account the fact that Apache runs under the asterisk user name rather than the default CentOS setup.

Installing awstats. To install awstats, log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

cd /root
wget http://bestof.nerdvittles.com/applications/awstats/awstats.pbx
chmod +x awstats.pbx
./awstats.pbx


Running awstats. When the 15-second install is finished, use your favorite web browser, and go to the following link using the actual private IP address of your Asterisk server instead of 192.168.0.250: http://192.168.0.250/cgi-bin/awstats.pl. Now click the Update now link on the top line. Presto! You’re in business.

Adding a cron entry. The risk you run by not automating the awstats update process is that your Apache logs may be rotated before you next update your awstats info. To avoid this, add the following entry to /etc/crontab. This will update your awstats data each morning at 3:55 a.m., seven minutes before the Apache log is rotated.¹

55 3 * * * asterisk /var/www/cgi-bin/awstats.pl ↵
-config=awstats -update > /dev/null


Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 

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