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This appendix describes some operational issues in running LogDoor and making LogDoor's output available over the Web.
Changing the server's log file. If you set up a single LogDoor task to process your server's log file, and the log file your server is using changes, you need to be sure to change the task's input log file as well. For instance, if your Web server is set up to change the name of its log file every month, you will need to change the name of the LogDoor task's input log file every month as well. This change does not have to be made at the same time as the Web server's log name change. In fact, the change should not be made until LogDoor has fully processed the old log file. Once a LogDoor task has fully processed the old file, it will do no more processing until you tell it the new file name.
Changing LogDoor's output files' names. If you wish to change the names of the output files created by a LogDoor task, for instance on a monthly basis, you can do so simply by changing the suffix used within these file names through the Output Files dialog box. See the "LogDoor Files" section for details.
Web output. There are a number of different options for making LogDoor's output available over the Web. The main options are:
(1) using folder aliases within a LogDoor task's output folder to redirect the output to different places in your Web server's hierarchy.
(2) using folder aliases within the WebSTAR folder to point places in your Web hierarchy to folders within the LogDoor output folder (MacHTTP does not support aliases in this fashion).
(3) using a folder alias in the WebSTAR folder to point directly to a LogDoor's task's output folder.
(4) placing a LogDoor task's output folder right in the Web server's folder.
Option 1 results in LogDoor's output actually being stored within the individual sites; the other options keep that output independent of the sites. Options 1 and 2 require you to explictly make LogDoor's output available over the Web; options 3 and 4 automatically make all output available. Which option you choose depends mainly on the level of control that you wish the site owner to have over the LogDoor output files, and the amount of work you want to go to to export a new site's information.
Regardless of the option chosen, you will also want to establish password-protected realms, or some other form of security, for the Web-accessible LogDoor output, giving site owners access to only their site's data, and the Webmaster access to all of LogDoor's output.
If you wish to make LogDoor's output logs Web-accessible, you may also want to assign them a custom MIME type so that they will not be displayed as text in a Web browser. The recommended MIME type for LogDoor's output logs is application/x-logdoor. After setting the custom MIME type on your Web server, you would then describe to your site owners how to configure their Web browser so as to automatically download these log files to specific Mac file types (for instance a spreadsheet file). For details of assigning MIME types to specific files, consult you WebSTAR or MacHTTP reference manual.
Additionally, if you wish to allow site owners to download the tab-delimited text summaries so that they can be imported into a spreadsheet, you may also wish to assign them a custom MIME type. Otherwise, since these files are of type .txt, they will be displayed in the user's Web browser. Alternately, you can just have the site owners save the files after they are displayed.
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