Splitbot Online Tutorial

Description

Splitbot is a program that generates individual logs for users from the Host's World Wide Web HTTPD Server. It does this by monitoring (snooping on) specific logfiles created by the server and extracting individual user entries. These entries are then copied into "personal" logfiles which are found in the user's own public_html directory.

These logs are updated every 10 minutes by Splitbot, which is run as a cron job by the host. Several logfiles are generated; each of these files are discussed in more detail in the next section. Each file is a duplicate of the original Server logs. There is only one difference: they only contain entries that pertain to the user, so they are smaller in size.

Access for the user to Splitbot is provided through sbtab. This utility works in conjunction will Splitbot, allowing the user to change and update their entry in the Splitbot database. The user may enable or disable their own logfile generation, set file size limits, or view their current settings. More information on this will be found in the Command Line Flags section.

Individual Logs Generated

Splitbot currently generates three different logs. Each of these logs contain entries extracted from the Host logfiles that specify an access to one of the user's WWW resources:

access_log
This logfile contains entries that show requests to the Host HTTPD server asking for HTML files, GIF or XBM image files, or other WWW resources. Each line is in "common-log" format, and contains information about a single request.
errors
This logfile contains entries that show errors that occured while the Host HTTPD server was carrying out a request. In most cases, errors that are logged here are transient and don't occur very often. If a particular error is found to occur over and over again, the user may want to check for missing or deleted files, permission problems, path problems, or errors in their HTML documents.
referer_log
This logfile contains entries that show the names of sites that have anchors or HTML "pointers" to the user's site. Each entry will contain the remote site's name, as well as the pathname of the HTML file containing the link. In some cases, a bookmark, hotlist, or file reference can also be used to point to a user's site; this information is also included.

Starting Splitbot

Enabling individual access for Splitbot is very simple. The user simply executes sbtab with no parameters:

   % sbtab

When sbtab is executed, the user is verified and the destination directory is tested for proper access. If an error occurs during execution, an error message is displayed indicating the source of the problem. To verify that the user is now in the Splitbot database, sbtab may be executed using the -L parameter:

   % sbtab -l

The user's login name, default file size limit, and destination directory path will be displayed. Other command line parameters are available; they are discusses in the next section.

Once sbtab is executed and the user's entry in the Splitbot database is verified, it will take up to 10 minutes for the first logfiles to appear, so don't be concerned if nothing happens immediately. If your WWW page is not visited very often, it can even take longer. Splitbot won't create the logfiles until there is an entry in the Host logs. If your page is only visited a few times a day, it may be several hours before the logs appear.

Command Line Flags

The sbtab utility has several command line options. A command line option is always prefixed with the '-' character, and may be in either upper or lower case. Mutliple command-line options may be used as long as each one begins with it's own '-' character and each option is separated by other options with spaces. The following sbtab command line options are available:

   USAGE:
      sbtab {-h -l -r -s}
      -h          Help listing (what you see now)
      -l          List current settings
      -r          Removes (disables) entry from the table
      -s value    Specifies size limit for logfile

Hints

If you want to change your file size limit after you have enabled Splitbot, you must first disable it, and then re-enable it with the size parameter:

   % sbtab -r
   % sbtab -s 5000000

The example above will disable logfile generation and then immediately re-enable it with the new file size limit of 5 Mbytes.

Korn shell users must make sure that their USER and HOME environment variables are set before executing sbtab.

It is up to the user to manage their own logfiles. For example, if you set the file size limit to a number larger than the storage space you are allocated on XMission, then Splitbot could eventually use up all your available storage space. It is recommended that you monitor the logfiles sizes, and when they become too large, delete them. The next time Splitbot is executed, the logfile will pick up where the old (deleted) file left off.

Known Bugs & Implementation Issues

There are no know bugs at this time.

XMission is using "Spinner" for it's WWW Server. Spinner does not currently have support for errors or referer_log files, although they are working on a new release that should include them. Until then, Splitbot will only generate the access_log file. When the new version of Spinner is installed, these files will appear in your directory automatically.