GoAccess - Apache2 Log Analyzer

2025-01-08

I use GoAccess to generate reports for my web server. Following are the steps to get it running:

1. Per GoAccess installation instructions:

   $ wget https://tar.goaccess.io/goaccess-1.9.3.tar.gz
   $ tar -xzvf goaccess-1.9.3.tar.gz
   $ cd goaccess-1.9.3/
   $ ./configure --enable-utf8 --enable-geoip=mmdb
   $ make
   $ make install
   

2. Download latest GeoIP2 database from MaxMind. You need a free account with MaxMind. The download contains 3 databases:

   • GeoLite2-City.mmdb
   • GeoLite2-Country.mmdb¹
   • GeoLite2-ASN.mmdb

   Place downloaded files in /usr/local/share/GeoIP/.²

3. Edit GoAccess configuration file /usr/local/etc/goaccess/goaccess.conf. Make sure these lines are uncommented:

   log-format COMBINED
   enable-panel GEO_LOCATION
   

   Add the following lines:

   geoip-database /usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoLite2-City.mmdb
   geoip-database /usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoLite2-ASN.mmdb
   

4. Edit crontab (sudo crontab -e) to add:

   0 1 * * * (cd /var/log/apache2 && zcat access.log.*.gz | goaccess access.log access.log.1 - -o report.html)
   

   Translation: every day at 01:00 pipe all compressed logs (zcat) and uncompressed ones through goaccess and generate report.html output file.