Logstalgia
a website access log visualisation tool
Copyright (C) 2008 Andrew Caudwell
http://code.google.com/p/logstalgia/
Contents
========
1. Description
2. Requirements
3. Using Logstalgia
4. Copyright
1. Description
==============
Logstalgia is a visualization tool that replays or streams web server access
logs as a retro arcade game simulation.
2. Requirements
===============
Logstalgia's display is rendered using OpenGL and requires a 3D accelerated
video card to run.
Currently Logstalgia supports several access.log formats used by
Apache web servers (common/custom format).
As Logstalgia is designed to playback logs in real time you will need a log from
a fairly busy webserver to achieve interesting results (eg 100s of requests
each minute).
3. Using Logstalgia
===================
logstalgia [options] logfile
options:
-f Fullscreen.
-WxH Set the window size. If -f is also supplied, will attempt to
set the video mode to this also.
-b, --background FFFFFF
Background colour in hex.
-x, --full-hostnames
Show full request ip/hostname.
-s, --speed
Simulation speed. Defaults to 1 (1 second-per-second).
-u, --update-rate
Page Summary update speed. Defaults to 5 (5 seconds).
-g name,regex,percent[,colour]
Urls matching the given regex will appear under a new section
with the given name using the given percentage of the screen.
Colour may optionally be supplied in the common hexadecimal
format (eg FF0000 for red)
If no groups are supplied the default groups are Images
(image files), CSS (.css files) and Scripts (.js files).
If there is enough space remaining a catch-all group of Misc
will appear as the last group.
--paddle-mode MODE
Paddle mode (pid, vhost, single).
vhost - separate paddle for each virtual host in the log file.
pid - separate paddle for each process id in the log file.
single - single paddle (the default).
--sync Read from STDIN, ignoring entries before the current time.
--start-position POSITION
Begin at some position in the log file (between 0.0 and 1.0).
--stop-position POSITION
Stop at some position.
--no-bounce
No bouncing.
--hide-response-code
Hide response code.
--hide-paddle
Hide paddle.
--hide-url-prefix
Hide URL protocol and hostname prefix of requests.
--disable-progress
Disable the progress bar.
--disable-glow
Disable the glow effect.
--glow-duration
Duration of the glow (between 0.0 and 1.0).
--glow-multiplier
Adjust the amount of glow.
--glow-intensity
Intensity of the glow.
--output-ppm-stream FILE
Write frames as PPM to a file (?-? for STDOUT).
--output-framerate FPS
Framerate of output (used with --output-ppm-stream).
logfile
The path to the access log file to read or '-' if you wish to
supply log entries via STDIN.
Examples:
Watch an example Apache access.log file using the default settings:
logstalgia data/example.log
Watch the live Apache access.log, starting from the most recent batch of entries
in the log (requires tail). Note than '-' at the end is required for logstalgia
to know it needs to read from STDIN:
tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log | logstalgia -
To follow the log in real time, use the --sync option. This will start reading
from the next entry received on STDIN:
tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log | logstalgia --sync
Watch a remote Apache access.log via ssh:
ssh [email protected] tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log | logstalgia --sync
Supported Apache Log Formats:
Logstalgia supports the following widely used Apache log formats:
Common Log Format (CLF)
"%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b"
Common Log Format with Virtual Host
"%v %h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b"
NCSA extended/combined log format
"%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-agent}i\""
NCSA extended/combined log format with Virtual Host
"%v %h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-agent}i\""
The process id (%P), or some other identifier, may be included as an additional
field at the end of the entry. This can be used with '--paddle-mode pid' where
a separate paddle will be created for each unique value in this field.
Custom Log Format:
Logstalgia now supports a pipe ('|') delimited custom log file format:
timestamp - unix timestamp of the request date.
hostname - hostname of the request
path - path requested
response_code - the response code from the webserver (eg 200)
response_size - the size of the response in bytes
The following are optional:
success - 1 or 0 to indicate if successful
response_colour - response colour in hexidecial (#FFFFFF) format
referrer url - the referrer url
user agent - the user agent
virtual host - the virtual host (to use with --paddle-mode vhost)
pid - process id or some other identifier (--paddle-mode pid)
If success or response_colour are not provided, they will be derived from the
response_code using the normal HTTP conventions (code < 400 = success).
Recording Videos:
See the guide on the homepage for examples of recording videos with Logstalgia:
http://code.google.com/p/logstalgia/wiki/Videos
Interface:
The time shown in the top left of the screen is set initially from the first log
entry read and is incremented according to the simulation speed (-s).
The counter in the bottom right hand corner shows the number of requests
displayed since the start of the current session.
Pressing space at any time will pause/unpause the simulation. While paused you
may use the mouse to inspect the detail of individual requests.
Interactive keyboard commands:
(C) Displays Logstalgia logo
(N) Jump forward in time to next log entry
(+-) Adjust simulation speed
(<>) Adjust time scale
(ESC) Quit
4. Copyright
============
Logstalgia - web server access log visualization
Copyright (C) 2008 Andrew Caudwell <[email protected]>
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.