W3Olista Troubleshooting

This page list some of the major problems that may arise with the installation of this program. This listing is, of course, incomplete. If you have some trouble that is not covered here, simply mail me.

Basic Problems

How do I unpack the source archive?: Well, the command is tar xvf <archive-name>. But if your problems start here, you really should consider asking somebody to help you.

Compilation Problems

W3Olista doesn't compile

Make sure your C compiler is installed correctly and is 'supported' (it must be an Ansi C compiler). The default compiler of SunOS 4.x does not work. Remember setting the CC variable in the Makefile.
To make the RESOLVEADDR code compile on Solaris (and a few other systems), you must explicitely link the -lnsl library by adding it to the link statement in the Makefile.
You can try undefining the SHMONITOR and RESOLVEADDR settings in the Makefile. Maybe this helps.
Ask your system administrator if your machine complies to all requirements needed for W3Olista.

Startup Problems

If you run into problems firing up the program, the first try should be to run it from the command line. There are so many factors affecting the correct behaviour of a CGI program that we need to eliminate them step by step.

First step: Did it compile successfully?

Go to the directory where you have installed the program and enter

   olista form

This should print the empty query form in HTML format. Yes, it's pretty useless to get it printed onscreen, but it means that the program has compiled correctly. If even this command didn't work, see the compilation problems above.

Second step: Are the logfiles understood?

Now, we'll give it some real logfile to feed and prepare a simple report. Copy a single logfile into the currect directory and name it test.log. Then, run the following from the command line:

  olista html logdir=. logfile=test.log Report=Everything HostList=Sum

The single logfile should be processed, and the report should be printed in HTML format -- again, pretty usless on the terminal. If this didn't work, then your logfile probably does not use the Common Logfile Format (as described in this CERN document). In this case, you won't be able to use W3Olista, unless you find some C hacker that writes you an own Scanning function.

Third step: Are the logfiles configured correctly?

If you get messages like No logs found for this date, then you have incorrectly configured either the LOGDIR or LOGFILE definition in the Makefile. You can test this condition with the following command:

  olista html Report=Today HostList=Sum

This should read in today's logfile and print a short report. If you get such error messages like No logs found for this date, then you must get back to the Makefile and correct the LOGDIR and/or LOGFILE settings.
But if all these command line calls did work, then you know your problem is somewhere else.

CGI Problems

Calling the program through a Web browser adds a completely new bunch of possible problems. Before addressing them, make sure all the above command line examples do work. These are frequent problems:

The Query Form does not appear

Make sure you've used the correct URL, and correctly spelled the two commands "cgi" and "form" (case is irrelevant). My URL here is http://www.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de:83/~fp/cgi/olista/cgi/form
Make sure your WWW server is configured correctly (redirection rules, Exec directives) and running. Test the server with some other script, or look at its messages in verbose mode.

I always get "No logs found for this date"

Your LOGDIR and/or LOGFILE settings are incorrect. See above. You should have never got here.

I frequently get back empty pages

The server's script timeout is set too low (CERN server: the ScriptTimeOut directive). Clock the program from the command line, and set the timeout to at least twice this value.

General Problems

Maximum Process Size

To prepare reports on huge files with a great level of detail, W3Olista requires fair amounts of memory. Now there are some systems that limit the maximum size of a process. To see if this is a problem, first find out where this limit is, and then use any system monitor (top or yamm) to check the process growth.
If compiled with monitoring support, you can also use W3Olista's monitor; it prints a "heap" setting. Usually, the complete process is about twice as big as reported here.

Not the full day gets reported

If W3Olista does not report certain hours of a day (or only of some days), then there is a problem with Timezones.

Check the GMT setting in the Makefile.
Check if your timezone is properly configured in the /etc/profile file. This should be explained in the environ manual page. If you have to adjust your system clock manually to daylight savings, then this setting is wrong.

If the above didn't work, use the splitlog utility to reorganize your logfiles.

If you have a problem that bothers you and which is not addressed here, please email it.

Frank Pilhofer <fp -AT- fpx.de> Back to the Homepage

Last modified: Wed Jul 19 18:29:25 1995