Counter software for your Web Server

Counters are CGI programs written in a variety of programming languages and there are many you can choose from. In this tutorial we will describe the installation of one of them by Muquit, due to its availabilty for both NT and Linux, and the quality and stability of the code.

• Download the source

  I suggest that you create a downloads directory to store the source code of the Counter, and other programs you may also download. Go to the download page and select Download source for Count 2.5 (All platforms). After the download ends uncompress the file as follows:

  cd  /downloads      (the full path to the downloads directory).
  gzip  -d  wwwcount2.5.tar.gz
  
  tar  -xvf  wwwcount2.5.tar

  Replace 2.5 with the latest version of the counter. When the files finish uncompressing a directory wwwcount2.5 is created in the downloads directory containing the counter distribution.

  Compiling and installing

  Before you start obtain the following:

  cgi-bin directory path (should be  /home/httpd/cgi-bin)
  

  (you can accept the default paths for the Count directories)
  

  fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of your machine
  

  IP address of your machine
  

  user name and group your Web server runs with (should be nobody for both)

  When you have this information change to the /downloads/wwwcount2.5 directory and follow the instructions in Muquit's page. I suggest you select that the counter is to run in strict mode, and do not allow automatic file creation in the data directory, for security reasons.

  Using the counter

  The installation script places the counter program -- Count.cgi -- in the cgi-bin directory of your server. It also creates a series of directories for you to store, digits, logs, configuration and data (counter) files. See the directory structure here. See examples of counter tags and the FAQ for the counter to learn how to use it in details. You can add other types of digits from collections on the Web.