1 files changed, 66 insertions, 24 deletions

diff --git a/content/posts/2021-01-25-goaccess.md b/content/posts/2021-01-25-goaccess.md
index e8fcee3..efbd175 100644
--- a/content/posts/2021-01-25-goaccess.md
+++ b/content/posts/2021-01-25-goaccess.md
@@ -1,28 +1,42 @@
 ---
 title: Using GoAccess with Nginx to replace Google Analytics
 url: using-goaccess-with-nginx-to-replace-google-analytics.html
-date: 2021-01-25
+date: 2021-01-25T12:00:00+02:00
 draft: false
 ---
 
 ## Introduction
 
-I know! You cannot simply replace Google Analytics with parsing access logs and displaying a couple of charts. But to be honest, I actually never used Google Analytics to the fullest extent and was usually interested in seeing page hits and which pages were visited most often.
+I know! You cannot simply replace Google Analytics with parsing access logs and 
+displaying a couple of charts. But to be honest, I actually never used Google 
+Analytics to the fullest extent and was usually interested in seeing page 
+hits and which pages were visited most often.
 
-I recently moved my blog from Firebase to a VPS and also decided to remove Google Analytics tracking code from the site since its quite malicious and tracks users across other pages also and is creating a profile of a user, and I've had it. But I also need some insight of what is happening on a server and which content is being read the most etc.
+I recently moved my blog from Firebase to a VPS and also decided to remove 
+Google Analytics tracking code from the site since its quite malicious and 
+tracks users across other pages also and is creating a profile of a user, and 
+I've had it. But I also need some insight of what is happening on a server 
+and which content is being read the most etc.
 
 I have looked at many existing solutions like:
+
 - [Umami](https://umami.is/)
 - [Freshlytics](https://github.com/sheshbabu/freshlytics)
 - [Matomo](https://matomo.org/)
 
-But the more I looked at them the more I noticed that I am replacing one evil with another one. Don't get me wrong. Some of these solutions are absolutely fantastic but would require installation of databases and something like PHP or Node. And I was not ready to put those things on my fresh server. Also having Docker installed is out of the question.
+But the more I looked at them the more I noticed that I am replacing one evil 
+with another one. Don't get me wrong. Some of these solutions are absolutely 
+fantastic but would require installation of databases and something like PHP 
+or Node. And I was not ready to put those things on my fresh server. Also 
+having Docker installed is out of the question.
 
 ## Opting for log parsing
 
-So, I defaulted to parsing already existing logs and generating HTML reports from this data.
+So, I defaulted to parsing already existing logs and generating HTML reports 
+from this data.
 
-I found this amazing software [GoAccess](https://goaccess.io/) which provides all the functionalities I need, and it's a single binary. Written in Go.
+I found this amazing software [GoAccess](https://goaccess.io/) which provides 
+all the functionalities I need, and it's a single binary. Written in Go.
 
 GoAccess can be used in two different modes.
 
@@ -32,11 +46,15 @@ GoAccess can be used in two different modes.
 ![GoAccess HTML](/assets/goaccess/goaccess-dash-html.png)
 <center><i>Running in a browser</i></center>
 
-I, however, need this to run in a browser. So, the second option is the way to go. The Idea is to periodically run cronjob and export this report into a folder that gets then server by Nginx behind a Basic authentication.
+I, however, need this to run in a browser. So, the second option is the way 
+to go. The Idea is to periodically run cronjob and export this report into a 
+folder that gets then server by Nginx behind a Basic authentication.
 
 ## Getting Nginx ready
 
-I choose Ubuntu on [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/). First I installed [Nginx](https://nginx.org/en/), and [Letsencrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/getting-started/) certbot and all the necessary dependencies.
+I choose Ubuntu on [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/). First I 
+installed [Nginx](https://nginx.org/en/), and [Letsencrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/getting-started/) 
+certbot and all the necessary dependencies.
 
 ```sh
 # log in as root user
@@ -49,7 +67,8 @@ apt update && apt upgrade -y
 apt install nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx apache2-utils
 ```
 
-After all this is installed we can create a new configuration for a statistics. Stats will be available at `stats.domain.com`.
+After all this is installed we can create a new configuration for a statistics. 
+Stats will be available at `stats.domain.com`.
 
 ```sh
 # creates directory where html will be hosted
@@ -71,20 +90,27 @@ server {
 }
 ```
 
-Now we check if the configuration is ok. We can do this with `nginx -t`. If all is ok, we can restart Nginx with `service nginx restart`.
+Now we check if the configuration is ok. We can do this with `nginx -t`. If 
+all is ok, we can restart Nginx with `service nginx restart`.
 
-After all that you should add A record for this domain that points to IP of a droplet.
+After all that you should add A record for this domain that points to IP of 
+a droplet.
 
-Before enabling SSL you should test if DNS records have propagated with `curl stats.domain.com`.
+Before enabling SSL you should test if DNS records have propagated with 
+`curl stats.domain.com`.
 
-Now, it's time to provision TLS certificate. To achieve this, you execute command `certbot --nginx`. Follow the wizard and when you are asked about redirection always choose 2 (always redirect to HTTPS).
+Now, it's time to provision TLS certificate. To achieve this, you execute command 
+`certbot --nginx`. Follow the wizard and when you are asked about redirection 
+always choose 2 (always redirect to HTTPS).
 
-When this is done you can visit https://stats.domain.com and you should get 404 not found error which is correct.
+When this is done you can visit https://stats.domain.com and you should get 404 
+not found error which is correct.
 
 
 ## Getting GoAccess ready
 
-If you are using Debian like system GoAccess should be available in repository. Otherwise refer to the official website.
+If you are using Debian like system GoAccess should be available in repository. 
+Otherwise refer to the official website.
 
 ```sh
 apt install goaccess
@@ -122,11 +148,19 @@ goaccess \
 rm /var/log/nginx/access-all.log
 ```
 
-Because after a while nginx creates multiple files with access logs we use [`zcat`](https://linux.die.net/man/1/zcat) to extract Gziped contents and create a file that has all the access logs. After this file is used we delete it.
+Because after a while nginx creates multiple files with access logs we use 
+[`zcat`](https://linux.die.net/man/1/zcat) to extract Gziped contents and 
+create a file that has all the access logs. After this file is used we 
+delete it.
 
-If you want to exclude your home IP's result look at the `--exclude-ip` option in script and instead of `0.0.0.0` add your own home IP address. You can find your home IP by executing `curl ifconfig.me` from your local machine and NOT from the droplet.
+If you want to exclude your home IP's result look at the `--exclude-ip` option 
+in script and instead of `0.0.0.0` add your own home IP address. You can find 
+your home IP by executing `curl ifconfig.me` from your local machine and NOT 
+from the droplet.
 
-Test the script by executing `sh /var/www/html/stats.domain.com/generate-stats.sh` and then checking `https://stats.domain.com`. If you can see stats instead of 404 than you are set.
+Test the script by executing `sh /var/www/html/stats.domain.com/generate-stats.sh` 
+and then checking `https://stats.domain.com`. If you can see stats instead of 
+404 than you are set.
 
 It's time to add this script to cron with `cron -e`.
 
@@ -136,13 +170,17 @@ It's time to add this script to cron with `cron -e`.
 
 ## Securing with Basic authentication
 
-You probably don't want stats to be publicly available, so we should create a user and a password for Basic authentication.
+You probably don't want stats to be publicly available, so we should create a 
+user and a password for Basic authentication.
 
 First we create a password for a user `stats` with `htpasswd -c /etc/nginx/.htpasswd stats`.
 
-Now we update config file with `nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/stats.domain.com`. You probably noticed that the file looks a bit different from before. This is because `certbot` added additional rules for SSL.
+Now we update config file with `nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/stats.domain.com`. 
+You probably noticed that the file looks a bit different from before. This is 
+because `certbot` added additional rules for SSL.
 
-Your location portion the config file should now look like. You should add `auth_basic` and `auth_basic_user_file` lines to the file.
+Your location portion the config file should now look like. You should add 
+`auth_basic` and `auth_basic_user_file` lines to the file.
 
 ```nginx
 location / {
@@ -152,8 +190,12 @@ location / {
 }
 ```
 
-Test if config is still ok with `nginx -t` and if it is you can restart Nginx with `service nginx restart`.
+Test if config is still ok with `nginx -t` and if it is you can restart 
+Nginx with `service nginx restart`.
+
+If you now visit `https://stats.domain.com` you should be prompted for username 
+and password. If not, try reopening your browser.
 
-If you now visit `https://stats.domain.com` you should be prompted for username and password. If not, try reopening your browser.
+That is all. You now have analytics for your server that gets refreshed every 
+10 minutes.
 
-That is all. You now have analytics for your server that gets refreshed every 10 minutes.