Apache::SearchEngineLog 0.51 README
-----------------------------------

Apache::SearchEngineLog is a mod_perl module for apache to log the terms
used in searchengines to a SQL database.

Table Layout
------------

Apache::SearchEngineLog needs two tables: one for storing configuration
data, and one for storing the actual data wanted. The two tables should
look as follows:

This is the table for the actual reference data, by default named "hits".
  +--------+-------------+------+-----+---------------------+-------+
  | Field  | Type        | Null | Key | Default             | Extra |
  +--------+-------------+------+-----+---------------------+-------+
  | term   | varchar(50) |      |     |                     |       |
  | vhost  | varchar(20) |      | MUL |                     |       |
  | uri    | varchar(50) |      |     |                     |       |
  | domain | varchar(20) |      |     |                     |       |
  | date   | datetime    |      |     | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 |       |
  +--------+-------------+------+-----+---------------------+-------+

This is the table "config", used for storing collected information about
searchengines.
  +--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
  | Field  | Type        | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
  +--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
  | domain | varchar(20) |      | PRI |         |       |
  | field  | varchar(10) |      |     |         |       |
  +--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

You can use the included "createtable.sql" file to create these tables.


Configuration
-------------

Apache::SearchEngineLog is configured using environment variables which
you can set in apache's httpd.conf; An configuration could be:

  #in httpd.conf

  PerlSetEnv DBI_data_source  dbi:driver:dsn
  PerlSetEnv DBI_username     username
  PerlSetEnv DBI_password     password
  PerlSetEnv DBI_table        db_table #optional, defaults to "hits"
  PerlSetEnv DBI_timeout      seconds  #optional, defaults to 120

  PerlModule Apache::SearchEngineLog

  <Location /test>
    PerlLogHandler Apache::SearchEngineLog
  </Location>

To ensure a database conenction the database is pinged after DBI_timeout
seconds of inactivity. When set to 0 the database will always be pinged
before sending the request.


Performance
-----------

Since this is the very first release I don't have any information on this
topic yet. If you gather any experience with this module under load or any
other platform than those listed on the homepage please let me know!

Although this module does not use Apache::DBI it still uses persistent
connections to the database. Same thing: Please report any experiences you
make!

The 'createtable.sql' creates indexes for the 'hits' table which should be
a performance gain if you have a few entries in the database.


Evaluation
----------

There is a script, called 'analyse.pl', in this bundle which may be used
to analyse the collected data. (who would have guessed?! ;) It is really
simple and not very detailed, so I propably will write a better one.. When
calles without arguments it will print a usage table.

The second script, 'analyse.cgi' does basically the very same job, but
formats the results as HTML. It relies on mod_perl aswell, since it reads
the configuration the same way Apache::SearchEngineLog does it itself.
There are security issues (a parameter is taken without checking and used
further..) which is why I highly recommend to NOT make it accessible by
the general public. The positive news is, that it doen't need any
configuration at all, so using it should be as easy as "Copy into document
root, set permissions, open a browser"..

--
Florian 'octo' Forster
octopus@verplant.org
