Submit the Tracking Request

Welcome to the WebTracking PERL version

WebTracking is an on-line query tool which is used to access and search an Oracle database, created from log files of three web sites, operated and managed by EdCenter on Computational Science and Engineering:

http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu -- the main EdCenter web site

http://edcenter.sdsu.edu which hosts Sociology Workbench 1 (SWB1) PERL based first version and

http://edcenterdev.sdsu.edu which hosts Sociology Workbench 2 (SWB2) Java based second version.

WebTracking makes it easier to view and analyze the contents of the logs that store information about every hit/visit to any webpage within the EdCenter. There are two different versions:

http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/tracking implemented using PERL cgi, and
http://edcenter.sdsu.edu/tracking implemented using Java Servlets.

These different interfaces do virtually the same tasks, with one exception: Java Servlet version in column VISIT_DATE displays both visit time and visit date, while the PERL cgi version in that column displays only the visit date.

All three web sites are hosted on Solaris UNIX machines, and powered by Apache Servers. For every hit on a specific page within a site, the appropriate server log gets information about:

visitor web host -- i.e. the domain name of web host from which the visitor is calling, or whom he/she uses as a internet provider, for example edcenter-dyn-18-231.sdsu.edu
IP address -- the Internet providers unique ID number in digits and dots, for example 130.191.18.231
remote user -- records User Name (for accessing edcenter.sdsu.edu on-line tools), for example: zarko
visit date -- date and time when the visit occurred; PERL based interface (at http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/tracking/ ) displays date only, while Java Servlet based interface (at http://edcenter.sdsu.edu/tracking/ ) displays both date and time.
visit time -- separate column which displays the time of the visit only
our URL visited -- a Unique Resource Location, or specific web page on the appropriate (chosen) EdCenter server which was visited. Please see example bel-ow.
refer page -- the address of the web page (where the hyperlink originated or a form was submitted) with the link/request for visiting web page recorded in "our URL visited". This feature has been enabled since April 2001
Browser and OS -- environment variable named USER_AGENT contains information about the users computer browser and Operating System. This feature has been enabled since April 2001. For example, Mozilla/4.7 stands for Netscape 4.7, while Mozilla/4.0(compatible; MSIE 5.5 stands for Internet Explorer 5.5

Here is an example of the line of log file on www.edcenter.sdsu.edu created by Apache Server:
130.191.48.555 - - [14/Jun/2001:12:48:17 -0700] "GET /npaci/index.html HTTP/1.0" 200 29559 "http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/" "Mozilla/4.75 [en] (compatible; MSIE 5.5; WinNT; U)"

visitor IP address is 130.191.48.555
visit date is 14/Jun/2001
visit time is 12:48:17 Pacific Standard Time, which is 7:00 hours later than Greenwich time
visitor used GET method and Hypertext Transfer Protocol 1.0 to get the requested page
our URL visited is http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/npaci/index.html (portion "http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu" is omitted from log file and from the database)
symbol "/" in our URL visited corresponds to the server root -- that is a level of the very first page that opens when you click at http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu
refer page is http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/ (portion "http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu" is omitted from the database)
visitor used Internet Explorer 5.5 browser on Windows NT platform

The usage of the forms is mostly self-explanatory. Make your choices about which conditions you want, or do not want, to be part of your query. It is strongly recommended that in your query you do not use constraints that are too broad, because our database contains tables with over 400,000 entries. Choosing to display too many of them at once might cause a few minutes of delay before displaying the results, chocking your browser and even crashing your computer. You may decide to allocate extra memory to your favorite browser if you intend on searching for a longer time frame without other column constraints.

Query Request name	What it displays	Suggested time constraints (if no other constraints are applied)
Counter Web Tracking	row number, column to search for, and count of how many times the particular value for the search column occured in the chosen server log	3 years
Display Web Tracking	row number, up to five columns, chosen by user, with a set of constraints as specified in the query	2-8 weeks
Combined Web Tracking	a combination of the previous Tracking Requests, shows row number, number of counts, and up to five chosen columns	2 days - week

You can choose between displaying distinct and repeated results of your query. All the data rows are distinct, but if you perhaps search for only visitor web host and our URL visited, there might be two or more entries which are distinct, for example, only by date and time. Selecting the "distinct" feature will display only one common appearance of above chosen combination, while selecting the "repeated" feature will display all visits as many times as they appear in the Oracle database table.

Once you make your selection, and you look at the results, you might want to obtain additional information for some specific column and for some specific value to be (or not to be) in that column. In 'Choose optional column,' select the name of the desired column and type in (or cut and paste) the desired value in the first (left) text box for the ones you want to be selected, or in the second (right) text box for the ones you want that condition to be excluded from the search.

Have fun!

display query forms only

Submit the Counter WebTracking Request

Search:
Columns to Search for:
Begin Date:
End Date:
To Contain in:	value:
To not Contain in:	value:

Submit the Display WebTracking Request

Search site:	Choose: distinct repeated
Columns to Search for:
Begin Date:		Begin Hour:
End Date:		End Hour:
In following columns:	to contain value:	to not contain value:
In visitor web host:
In our URL visited:	all values our home page specify:	no constraints our home page specify:
In refer page:	all values www.edcenter.sdsu.edu site edcenter.sdsu.edu site edcenterdev.sdsu.edu site specify:	no constraints www.edcenter.sdsu.edu site edcenter.sdsu.edu site edcenterdev.sdsu.edu site specify:
Choose optional column:

Submit the Combined WebTracking Request

Search site:	Choose: distinct repeated
Columns to Search for:
Begin Date:		Begin Hour:
End Date:		End Hour:
Counter for values in first search column:	lower boundary:	upper boundary:
In following columns:	to contain value:	to not contain value:
In visitor's web host:
In our URL visited:	all values our home page specify:	no constraints our home page specify:
In referer page:	all values www.edcenter.sdsu.edu site edcenter.sdsu.edu site edcenterdev.sdsu.edu site specify:	no constraints www.edcenter.sdsu.edu site edcenter.sdsu.edu site edcenterdev.sdsu.edu site specify:
Choose optional column: