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.

Logstalgia supports several standardized access.log formats used by web servers
such as Apache and Nginx (see 'Supported Log Formats' below).

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).

    --paddle-position POSITION
            Paddle position as a fraction of the view width (0.25 - 0.75).

    --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-auto-skip
            Disable automatic skipping of empty time periods.

    --disable-progress
            Disable the progress bar.

    --disable-glow
            Disable the glow effect.

    --font-size SIZE
            Font size (10 - 40).

    --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 access.log file using the default settings:

    logstalgia data/example.log

Watch the live 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 access.log via ssh:

    ssh [email protected] tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log | logstalgia --sync

Supported Log Formats:

Logstalgia supports the following standardized log formats used by web servers like Apache and Nginx:

NCSA Common Log Format (CLF)
    "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b"

NCSA 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/>.