logstalgia (1)

logstalgia [options] logfile

logstalgia is a visualization tool that replays or streams web server access logs as a retro arcade game simulation.

logstalgia's display is rendered using OpenGL and requires a 3D accelerated video card to run.

Logstalgia supports several standardized access.log formats used by web servers such as Apache and Nginx (see 'SUPPORTED LOG FORMATS' below).

As logstalgia is designed to playback logs in real time you will need a log from a fairly busy webserver to achieve interesting results (eg 100s of requests each minute).

-f

Fullscreen.

-WIDTHxHEIGHT

Set the window size. If -f is also supplied, will attempt to set the video mode to this also. Add ! to make the window non-resizable.

-b, --background

Background colour in hex.

-x --full-hostnames

Show full request ip/hostname.

-s, --simulation-speed

Simulation speed. Defaults to 1 (1 second-per-second).

-p, --pitch-speed

Speed balls travel across the screen (defaults to 0.15).

-u, --update-rate

Page Summary update speed. Defaults to 5 (5 seconds).

-g name,regex,percent[,colour]

Creates a new named summarizer group for requests for which a specified attribute (HOST, URI or response CODE) matches a regular expression. Percent specifies a vertical percentage of screen to use.

A colour may optionally be supplied in hexadecimal format (eg FF0000 for red) which will be applied to all labels and request balls matched to the group.

Examples:

-g "HTML,URI=html?$,30" -g "Lan,HOST=^192,30" -g "Success,CODE=^[23],30"

If no groups are specified, the default groups are Images (image files), CSS (.css files) and Scripts (.js files).

If there is enough space remaining a catch-all group 'Misc' will appear as the last group.

--paddle-mode MODE

Paddle mode (pid, vhost, single).

vhost - separate paddle for each virtual host in the log file.

pid - separate paddle for each process id in the log file.

single - single paddle (the default).

--paddle-position POSITION

Paddle position as a fraction of the view width (0.25 - 0.75).

--sync

Read from STDIN, ignoring entries before the current time.

--from, --to 'YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss +tz'

Show entries from a specific time period.

If a time zone offset isn't specified the local time zone is used.

Example accepted formats:

    "2012-06-30"
    "2012-06-30 12:00"
    "2012-06-30 12:00:00 +12"

--start-position POSITION

Begin at some position in the log file (between 0.0 and 1.0).

--stop-position POSITION

Stop at some position.

--no-bounce

No bouncing.

--hide-response-code

Hide response code.

--hide-paddle

Hide paddle.

--hide-paddle-tokens

Hide paddle tokens shown in multi-paddle modes.

--hide-url-prefix

Hide URL protocol and hostname prefix of requests.

--disable-auto-skip

Disable automatic skipping of empty time periods.

--disable-progress

Disable the progress bar.

--disable-glow

Disable the glow effect.

--font-size SIZE

Font size.

--glow-duration

Duration of the glow (between 0.0 and 1.0).

--glow-multiplier

Adjust the amount of glow.

--glow-intensity

Intensity of the glow.

-o, --output-ppm-stream FILE

Write frames as PPM to a file ('-' for STDOUT).

-r, --output-framerate FPS

Framerate of output (used with --output-ppm-stream).

--load-config CONFIG_FILE

Load a config file.

--save-config CONFIG_FILE

Save a config file with the current options.

logfile

The path to the access log file to read or '-' if you wish to supply log entries via STDIN.

Watch an example access.log using the default settings:

logstalgia /usr/share/logstalgia/example.log

Watch the live access.log, starting from the most recent batch of entries in the log (requires tail). Note than '-' at the end is required for logstalgia to know it needs to read from STDIN:

tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log | logstalgia -

To follow the log in real time, use the --sync option. This will start reading from the next entry received on STDIN:

tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log | logstalgia --sync

Watch a remote access.log via ssh:

ssh [email protected] tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log | logstalgia --sync

Logstalgia supports the following standardized log formats used by web servers like Apache and Nginx:

NCSA Common Log Format (CLF)

    "%h %l %u %t  

NCSA Common Log Format with Virtual Host

    "%v %h %l %u %t  

NCSA extended/combined log format

    "%h %l %u %t  

NCSA extended/combined log format with Virtual Host

    "%v %h %l %u %t  

The process id (%P), or some other identifier, may be included as an additional field at the end of the entry. This can be used with '--paddle-mode pid' where a separate paddle will be created for each unique value in this field.

Logstalgia now supports a pipe ('|') delimited custom log file format:

timestamp - unix timestamp of the request date. hostname - hostname of the request path - path requested response_code - the response code from the webserver (eg 200) response_size - the size of the response in bytes

The following are optional:

success - 1 or 0 to indicate if successful response_colour - response colour in hexidecial (#FFFFFF) format referrer url - the referrer url user agent - the user agent virtual host - the virtual host (to use with --paddle-mode vhost) pid - process id or some other identifier (--paddle-mode pid)

If success or response_colour are not provided, they will be derived from the response_code using the normal HTTP conventions (code < 400 = success).

See the guide on the homepage for examples of recording videos with Logstalgia:

http://code.google.com/p/logstalgia/wiki/Videos

The time shown in the top left of the screen is set initially from the first log entry read and is incremented according to the simulation speed (-s).

The counter in the bottom right hand corner shows the number of requests displayed since the start of the current session.

Pressing space at any time will pause/unpause the simulation. While paused you may use the mouse to inspect the detail of individual requests.

Interactive keyboard commands:

(q) Debug Information (c) Displays Logstalgia logo (n) Jump forward in time to next log entry. (+-) Adjust simulation speed. (<>) Adjust pitch speed. (F12) Screenshot (Alt+Enter) Fullscreen toggle (ESC) Quit

 Written by Andrew Caudwell

 Project Homepage: http://code.google.com/p/logstalgia/

 Copyright (C) 2008 Andrew Caudwell ([email protected])

 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version
 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 GNU General Public License for more details.

 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

 Catalyst IT (catalyst.net.nz)

 For supporting the development and promotion of Logstalgia!