General Functionality Improving and Measuring
Log Files Two Types Usage Error Fastest if run on different disk than your Web site files.
Log Files Hundreds of facts and figures can be derived: Where are people coming from Where are they leaving to? What errors are they getting How many hits How many using certain ISPs?
NCSA NCSA Format is the most common format.
Improving Performance Turn off reverse DNS lookups Reverse DNS maps IP numbers to machine names. This can be useful for security and knowing the REMOTE_HOST. There are other methods.
Log Analysis Tools Wusage http://www.boutell.com/wusage/ Wwwstat (free) http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/wwwstat/ WebTrends (399-$15,000) http://www.webtrends.com/ The Webalizer (free. modifiable) http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/
Improving Performance Similar info is given in a different presentation (Apache2.ppt)
Improving Performance Use the most recent version of server. 10 x faster now than at beginning. ServerType Standalone
Improved features Better code Preforking servers – having processes just waiting for your requests Threads – independent streams of execution within a process KeepAlives KeepAlive On KeepAliveTimeout 15
Server-efficient Web Authoring Keep path names short Explicitly link to /index.htm files or end directory names with / Partition content to different servers: Images, Downloads, etc.