Apache Server for Windows Little Black Book:Tracking Your Server's Activity
function GetCookie (name) { var arg = name + "="; var alen = arg.length; var clen = document.cookie.length; var i = 0; while (i < clen) { var j = i + alen; if (document.cookie.substring(i, j) == arg) { var end = document.cookie.indexOf (";", j); if (end == -1) end = document.cookie.length; return unescape(document.cookie.substring(j, end)); } i = document.cookie.indexOf(" ", i) + 1; if (i == 0) break; } return null; } var m1=''; var gifstr=GetCookie("UsrType"); if((gifstr!=0 ) && (gifstr!=null)) { m2=gifstr; } document.write(m1+m2+m3);            Keyword Title Author ISBN Publisher Imprint Brief Full  Advanced      Search  Search Tips Please Select ----------- Components Content Mgt Certification Databases Enterprise Mgt Fun/Games Groupware Hardware IBM Redbooks Intranet Dev Middleware Multimedia Networks OS Prod Apps Programming Security UI Web Services Webmaster Y2K ----------- New Titles ----------- Free Archive To access the contents, click the chapter and section titles. Apache Server for Windows Little Black Book (Publisher: The Coriolis Group) Author(s): Greg Holden with Matthew Keller ISBN: 1576103919 Publication Date: 01/01/99 function isIE4() { return( navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft") != -1 && (navigator.appVersion.charAt(0)=='4') ); } function bookMarkit() { var url="http://www.itknowledge.com/PSUser/EWBookMarks.html?url="+window.location+"&isbn=0"; parent.location.href=url; //var win = window.open(url,"myitk"); //if(!isIE4()) // win.focus(); } Search this book:  















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Recording Server Errors
In addition to support for the access log, Apache includes support for error logging among its core directives. The ErrorLog directive follows this syntax:


ErrorLog filename


The following also apply:


•  Default—ErrorLog logs/error.log
•  Context—server config, virtual host

As with TransferLog and CustomLog, ErrorLog specifies the location of an error log file as being relative to the ServerRoot if the file name given does not begin with a forward slash (/).
The ErrorLog keeps track of every unsuccessful request that comes to Apache. You can control the amount of data that ErrorLog contains by using the LogLevel directive. The default argument to Log-Level is warn, which records only warnings sent by Apache to the client. The other values for LogLevel are:

•  alert—Alert messages
•  crit—Critical messages
•  debug—Includes source file and line number where the message was generated to aid in debugging
•  emerg—Emergency messages
•  error—Error messages
•  info—Information messages
•  notice—Notification messages

Another directive, ScriptLog, is used to record error messages that result from scripts; for example:


ScriptLog logs/script.log


ScriptLog is not included by default; you have to add it to the configuration files. The specified file contains information that the script encounters with regard to the standard input (STDIN) and standard error streams (STDERR). (For more information on ScriptLog, see Chapter 7.)
Using Cookies To Track Users
It’s likely that you are familiar with HTTP cookies because, although they are becoming increasingly popular as a way to track users to many Web sites, they have also generated controversy as a possible invasion of a user’s privacy.

An HTTP cookie is a bit of information that is transmitted from a server to a Web browser in the form of key/value pairs. If the cookie is accepted by the Web browser (and most of the latest Web browsers give users the option of declining cookies), it allows the server to “remember” something about the browser. The next time the browser visits the site that issued the cookie, the server retrieves the information on the cookie it sent earlier. With this information, the server can identify the user.
The Apache module mod_usertrack, which is included in the Windows version of Apache in the form of ApacheModuleUserTrack.dll, can be compiled into the server to add cookie functionality to the server (mod_usertrack is not compiled into Apache by default).
If you use ApacheModuleUserTrack.dll, you can use two cookie-related directives. The first, CookieTracking, lets you create cookies that uniquely identify your visitors. The other, CookieExpires, tells the browser to delete or “expire” the cookie after a certain period of time. To enable cookie tracking, follow these steps:

1.  Open httpd.conf in Notepad.
2.  Uncomment the following line:


#LoadModule usertrack_module modules/
ApacheModuleUserTrack.dll


3.  Choose File|Save to save your changes.
4.  Restart Apache.
5.  Open srm.conf or httpd.conf and add the following to tell Apache to send cookies to clients:


CookieTracking on


CookieTracking follows this syntax:


CookieTracking on or off


In addition, the following apply:

•  Context—server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
•  Override—FileInfo

6.  If you want to tell the browser how long it should keep the cookie before it is deleted, use the CookieExpires directive; for example:


CookieExpires "2 weeks"


CookieExpires is used as follows:


CookieExpires expiry-period


The following also applies:

•  Context—server config, virtual host

With CookieExpires, you can specify the time as a number of seconds or as a string enclosed by double-primes. The string can specify years, months, weeks, hours, minutes, or seconds; for example:


CookieExpires 4000
CookieExpires "1 month 2 weeks 3 days 4 hours 10 minutes"


7.  Choose File|Save to save your changes.
8.  Restart Apache.

Keep in mind that simply compiling mod_usertrack does not activate cookies. To do so, you need to add the CookieTracking directive.



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