daily email of search log?

[siwalker]

Before I reinvent the wheel, has anyone implemented a daily/weekly email of the previous 24 hours or 7 days of the search log from their server that they'd be prepared to share?
I find the log useful for pointers and priorities on adding new products, but the occasional FTP download as and when I remember is a pain.
It should be a fairly trivial shell script running under cron but my Unix shell scripting is rusty to say the least.

Cheers,
simon

[Bruce]

Can other forum users post here please and let Simon know if he needs to reinvent the wheel or not. Has anyone been able to implement this request?

Kind regards,

[wjcampbe]

I run Sawmill log analyser. It provides overall search words/phrases and search phrases by search engine as two of the available reports. Date period can be filtered to individual day, week, month, year, whatever.

It can be set to automatically download the logs by ftp.

[siwalker]

Thanks Bill, but that's presumably the web server log you're referring to. I'm just interested in the Actinic search.log file.
Thinking about it I don't need to do any fancy grep stuff, just a daily email of the existing search.log; concatenate it to search.log.archive and then delete it. Seems the simplest way, and time I started getting into shell scripts again I suppose. Heigh ho. A project for after Christmas I think.

Cheers,
simon

[wjcampbe]

It is for server logs, where is the existing search.log file? I've never heard of it.

I can get the search terms from Sawmill by showing the parameters used on the perl script call.

[jont]

Bill - there is a mod in the AUG which allows the creation of a log file for what is entered into the sites simple search and advanced search boxes - I think it is this which Simon is referring to

[jont]

@Simon

If you are creating a log from the simple and advanced search boxes on your site you are best off not calling it search.log .... your competitors could access the file and see what people are searching for! You have the option to name the log file - best to make it very obscure eg TggYre43H.log

[pinbrook]

I use the search.log file, but i just look at it online, and delete it from time to time.

It is useful for seeing what people are looking for which isn't stocked, I also use it to ensure that people can find item I do have but they may search on a different term.

It holds better info for interrogation that awstats etc.

Simon if you do manage to find something please post

[siwalker]

It is for server logs, where is the existing search.log file? I've never heard of it.

See http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=1366
Simply logs what people enter into an Actinic search box. It's amazing/enlightening what people type into it...

Cheers,
simon

[jont]

Simon - just as a thought what about using a synchronisation tool with the server set as a mapped drive?

[David@MPL]

Hello all,

I've dabbled in writing perl scripts and when I saw this thread I thought I'd have a go at solving the problem.

Now I've not managed to come up with an automated log emailer but the below CGI script will open your search log file, copy the data into an email and send it to you, and then delete the log file so a new one is created by the next search.

With the use of recurring tasks in Outlook, you can create a link to the script and with just one click you'll be emailed. I had wondered about using IE to do the job of running the script as a scheduled task, but I could find a way of making it open to a page that isn't your home page.

As I said before, I've only dabbled in perl script so if any one has any comments, suggestions, criticisms, I'll be glad to here them. Obviously, the usual warnings about backing up data, etc apply. Remember, this script will DELETE your search log (which will be remade when a new search is performed), so if you don't want it to be deleted, remove or comment out the following line:

unlink($logfile);

To use this script, copy the code below into notepad and make the relevant changes as detailed in the first few lines — remember to leave the backslash before the @ sign in the email addresses. Save the file as log_email.cgi (or whatever you like .cgi) and upload it to your actalog folder. Then CHMOD the file to 755. Now simply use a browser to visit http://www.yourdomain.com/acatalog/log_email.cgi and you're done.

I have noticed however that the email occassionally takes a little while to arrive but I'm not sure what's causing that.

Enjoy

David

#!/usr/bin/perl

# Enter your email address below 
# *IMPORTANT* LEAVE THE BACKSLASH BEFORE THE AT (@) SIGN
$emailaddress = "name\@yourdomain.com";

# Enter your CC email address below - can be left blank 
# *IMPORTANT* LEAVE THE BACKSLASH BEFORE THE AT (@) SIGN
$CCemailaddress = "cc_name\@yourdomain.com";

# Enter you search log file name below
$logfile = "search.log";

open(FILE, $logfile) || die "Unable to open file: $!";
@data = <FILE>;
close (FILE);

open (MAIL, "|/usr/sbin/sendmail -t") || return 0;

select (MAIL);
print << "EOF";
To:   $emailaddress
Cc:   $CCemailaddress
From: Actinic Search Log 
Subject: Actinic Search Log

@data

EOF
close(MAIL);
select (STDOUT);
printThankYou();


sub printThankYou(){ 
print << "EOF";
Content-Type: text/html

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Actinic Search Log</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<TABLE CELLSPACING=2 CELLPADDING=2 border=0 width=600>
 <TR>
  <TD>
    <CENTER>
    <BR>
    <FONT SIZE=+3><B>Thank You</b></font>
    <BR><BR><BR>
    <B><FONT SIZE=+1>Your Actinic search log has been emailed to you.</FONT></B>
    </CENTER>
   </TD>
 </TR>
</TABLE>
</BODY>
</HTML>

EOF
} 

unlink($logfile);

[siwalker]

@Simon

If you are creating a log from the simple and advanced search boxes on your site you are best off not calling it search.log .... your competitors could access the file and see what people are searching for! You have the option to name the log file - best to make it very obscure eg TggYre43H.log

Interesting point, but attempting to retrieve http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/search.log results in an Access Denied message.

Cheers,
simon

[jont]

My hacking skills are not too sharp (paranoia is much keener) hence the concern for non standard file names ... but if the server is preventing access then brilliant

[siwalker]

I've dabbled in writing perl scripts and when I saw this thread I thought I'd have a go at solving the problem.

Thanks for having a go - as I'm away for a few weeks from Monday I'll have to have a look when I get back. Just one thought: if you could append the contents of the search file to search.log.archive (or whatever) before deleting it then there's a safe backup of it's contents over time that's useful for other types of analysis.
I don't know Perl, so I don't if there's an easy way to do that.

Cheers,
simon

[siwalker]

Possible, but I'd still prefer to see only the entries since I last saw it, plus ideally it needs the entries with my (fixed) IP address filtering out.

Cheers,
simon