Using this access control method you can limit access to certain branches of the directory tree. If you want to really understand how this works, nothing is better than reading the manual.

You can control access to your webpage two different ways, by host filtering or user authentication. But keep in mind that neither method is fullproof. This should be considered as secure as a courtesy lock on a restroom door; nice, but ultimately ineffective.

The default name of the access control file is .htaccess but that is not written in stone. In the server configuration overview we looked at a file called srm.conf. This file had the following entry:

AccessFileName .htaccess

This is the default value, but any specified filename can be used. For the purposes of this chapter I will refer to the .htaccess file by name, but your server may use a different file name.

The method of control is very simple. Place a correctly formated file called .htaccess in a directory and you can restrict access via the web to that directory. Here is a simple example of an .htacess file:

AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "This is NOT a restricted directory"
AuthType Basic

<Limit GET>
order allow,deny
allow from all
</Limit>

The first two lines refer to files that contain lists of users and groups. I will cover the specific format of the files and their use later. The AuthName entry is displayed in the message box if the browser needs to request a username / password. AuthType is always Basic because the advanced authorization methods based on Kerberos or MD5 are detailed enough for books themselves.

The important parts for now are contained in the familiar looking <Limit> tag. GET is the only widely supported method. PUT was under developement to allow uploading and while POST is partially supported, its use is too complex for this document. Basically, to retrieve ANY document from this directory via the web, the web server will evaluate the .htaccess file and allow or deny access based on the outcome. The above example file is wide open and will allow anyone access. Let’s look at a more restrictive <Limit> rule.

<Limit GET>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from mangohosting.com
</Limit>

This rule will cause everyone to be denied EXCEPT hosts from mangohosting.com. The server processes the rules in order and the first exception case is returned. Here is another way to look at it.

<Limit GET>
order allow,deny
deny from mangohosting.com
</Limit>

By changing the order to allow,deny and changing the allow entry to deny we have created a ban list. Everyone EXCEPT mangohosting.com hosts can get documents from the directory.

<Limit GET>
order deny,allow
allow from all
deny from mangohosting.com 192.168.10.
</Limit>

This rule set is evaluated the same as the one above it, but includes an additional deny rule for the 192.168.10. domain. The drawback to using a DNS name can be illustrated if the web server can not resolve an IP address to a domain name. If you rely completely on DNS names and DNS ever fails, you may find yourself locked out of your own site!

Host access control is the simplest way to control access, but what if you have a different ip address every time you log in and you don’t want to allow everyone from your domain access to the directory tree? I’m glad I asked that.

The most effective method of access restriction is the use of a username and password. By using two additional files, people can be granted acc

To access your web site traffic statistics:

» Log in to your control panel
» Select “view site stats”
» Select the domain you wish to view

If you should see a message stating “No stats have been generated for this domain yet”, it means that you haven’t enabled your server logs.

» Select “Edit domain”
» Select the domain you wish to enable statistics for
» Select “Enable logs”

You then may have to wait up to 24 hours to view your stats as log processing only occurs once a day.

Interpreting your statistics

Your server log is basically a text file that records all of the activity on your web site. The statistics application used by Mango Hosting translates all this information into an easy-to-read format. Please bear in mind that statistics reporting applications are never 100% accurate – but they do act as good indicators.

Let’s break down the various terminology used on the report:

Hits

This is a request made to the server. As a page is made up of a number of elements such as the html itself, links to .js files and images, a single page request may generate a large number of hits. Hits are not a good way to measure the traffic on your site.

Files

This represents the total number of requests that resulted in an element being sent back to the user – with the exception of 404 File not found requests or where a person already has the requested element in their cache.

Pages

The URLs that would be considered the actual page being requested. This refers to pages that end in .htm, .html, .php and .cgi.

Kbytes

(KB) is 1024 bytes (1 Kilobyte). It’s a measurement of the data that was transferred from the server during the time period. There are 1024 Kilobytes in a Megabyte and 1024 Megabytes in a Gigabyte.

Unique Sites

This is the number of unique IP addresses/hostnames that made requests to the server. As many visitors can appear to come from a single site or from many IP addresses, this can be an inaccurate report of how many unique visitors have been on your site during the time period.

An IP address is a unique identifier. While you are using it, no one else on the web can utilize that particular set of numbers.

Visits

A unique visit is defined as someone with a unique IP address who is visiting your site for the first time that day. When a person logs on to their ISP they are assigned a unique IP address.

No matter how many times a visitor refreshes pages or navigates through your web site, they will only be counted once for the day, making this measurement a more accurate way to estimate your site traffic. This is one of the more important statistics to take notice of.

URL

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. In your statistics, you’ll be able to see the most popular pages requested by your visitors.

Unique referrers

Unique referrers are those sources that bring a person to your site or pages requested by a browser once the visitor is on your site. This being the case, you’ll notice in this section that many of your own pages will appear.

Unique usernames

This displays the persons/computers who accessed your site via a login of some description.

Unique agents

These can be software browsers – such as Netscape, IE, Opera etc. or search engine spiders indexing your site. The following is a summary of the most popular search engine spider names. A “spider” is an automated software application that follows links, collects data and then sends that information back to a database.

You may also see activity from web-strippers. Web strippers are also known as off-line browsers – they are used by people who want to download your entire site. More on this topic later in the article.

Search strings

Are generated from examining the referrer strings in your log and picking out the search criteria used to generate the search engine listing that caused the visitor to arrive on your site.

Response Code

These codes are generated by the web server and indicate the final status of each request made to it – whether the page was successfully delivered, unauthorized access was attempted or a request to a non-existent page occurred.

Entry pages

The first page visited when a visitor arrives on your site. In many instances, you may find that due to search engine listings, your home page is not the main point of entry. This is a point to keep in mind when designing a web site. Each page should be considered an entrance; so it’s crucial that your navigation is well thought out to ensure visitors can get from one page to any other page easily.

Exit pages

The last page visited before the user leaves the site.

How to use this information

Using these statistics, you can crunch it down further to ascertain the success of your site or potential trouble areas, for example:

Visitor/Page view ratio

If the number of pages divided by the number of pages only equalled 1:1, this could signify that visitors were leaving your site as soon as they arrived – that your site is not ’sticky’. If you only have a site where the main content is a single page, then this wouldn’t apply. The higher the page to visitor ratio in most cases, the better, especially if you are running a content site. If your page to visitor ratio is very high, it may also mean that people are having problems finding information on your site, which in turn means extra bandwidth being used to locate the desired information – it all depends on your site topic and goals.

Bloat pages

Review the “Top URL’s” section and then divide the kilobytes for your most popular pages by the number of hits. You may find that one or two of your pages constitute the vast majority of your bandwidth usage unnecessarily. If you have very popular pages and you can trim them down a bit by removing superfluous code, the bandwidth savings can be huge.

Bad links

In the “Hits by Response Code” section, take note of the “Code 404 – Not Found” entry. If this is high, it may be that links on your site are pointing to content within your site that doesn’t exist or your linking partners are linking to non-existent content. These 404 errors can also be caused by “idiot bots” such as web stripping software.

To check your own site for bad links you can use this free online application from the W3C:

http://validator.w3.org/checklink

By entering your index (home) page into the validator, it will check all links from that page, and then the links on subsequent pages depending on the settings you select.

Just a note in regards to 404’s – Mango Hosting has a function to allow you to create custom 404 error pages. This can greatly assist in keeping visitors on your site should they use a broken link. For further information view “Creating Custom Error Pages“.

Problem scripts

Much the same as page bloat, certain scripts may cause excessive bandwidth usage due to the way they are coded. This can included JavaScript containers (.js).

Web Strippers

Web Strippers can be a real headache for content sites. Although they go under the innocent name of “offline browsers”, they can significantly increase the amount of bandwidth you use each month as people download entire sites to either read through offline, or for more sinister purposes. It’s difficult to keep these software agents out as there are new applications developed every day. The other problem is that many of these offline browsers can masquerade as popular browser software.

The best way to keep these strippers out of your web is by implementing exclusion statements in your robots.txt file. We don’t have a tutorial published on this subject as yet, but Mango Hosting clients are welcome to contact us and we’ll send you the instructions and a sample robots.txt file to help you with protecting your site. You can submit a request via our support form on the left hand side of this page, just ask for the support ticket to be forwarded to Michael Bloch.

We hope this tutorial has helped to clarify your web statistics and how they can be used.