RayRay Is Forever

For those of you who like Awstats, Maxmind’s GeoIP City database is now available for free as GeoLite City. Geolite Country has been available for free as an alternative to the GeoIP::Free module that Awstats uses by default in Cpanel. Since the latest EDGE updates, the GeoIP::Free module has been throwing errors.

Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/Geo/IPfree.pm line 81.
Create/Update database for config "/home/USERNAME/tmp/awstats/awstats.DOMAIN.com.conf" by AWStats version 6.9 (build 1.925)

Eth0.us has a fix – which is to downgrade to the older version. I decided I would try something new. Besides adding the by city information, the country database is much more up to date and new updates are available monthly from Maxmind as well as an API to use the databases. You can find all kinds of methods to make use of these from their API section.

Installing Maxmind GeoIPCountry & GeoIPCity on your Cpanel server:
1. Install the GeoIP C API (comes with the country database)
2. Install the Geo::IP Perl module (Pureperl if you cannot do step 1)
3. Download the binary format Maxmind City lite database. gunzip the .dat file and copy to /usr/local/share/GeoIP/, which is where the Country database will be if you performed step 1.

For Cpanel users, you must run this command: cp /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/awstats-6.9/wwwroot/cgi-bin/plugins/geoip_city_maxmind.pm /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/plugins/geoip_city_maxmind.pm This will make the module available for use by Awstats.
For new accounts an Awstats configuration file is generated. To add Country and now City statistics in all new sites, edit /usr/local/cpanel/etc/awstats.conf. I’m not sure if cpup will overwrite this file, but it is possible.

You can comment out LoadPlugin="geoipfree"< so the end of the file looks like this:

#LoadPlugin="geoipfree"
LoadPlugin="geoip GEOIP_STANDARD /usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat"
LoadPlugin="geoip_city_maxmind GEOIP_STANDARD /usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoLiteCity.dat"

In order to add this to any exsting sites with Awstats, you’ll need to edit the /homedir/username/tmp/awstats.domain.com.conf file and change the end. Make sure there that you comment out the old LoadPlugin lines.

Trying it out
If you have in the Web Host Manager (WHM) : Tweak Settings the check box to allow users to update their Awstats, you can try this out. Run tail /usr/local/cpanel/logs/stats_log and watch for any errors from your attempted update. That is if they don’t pop out at your screen.

While I’m at it, I want to say kudos to Maxmind for releasing another free product (though read the licensee) and eth0.us because it has been a very helpful blog in the past.