Bolero's Tables and WebSTAR Considerations

Now that you have installed everything needed to run Bolero, and are familiarized with the components of Bolero, this chapter will explain:

Table Definitions

The information logged from WebSTAR is entered into the appropriate tables in the Bolero database. When you report on the information captured by Bolero, these tables are searched for information that matches the criteria of the query.

You can either scroll through the descriptions, or click on one of the table titles below to go directly to that description.

ParentSummary
AgentsAgents Summary
Client DomainsClient Domains Summary
Domain NamesDomain Names Summary
EMailEMail Summary
MethodsMethods Summary
PathArgsPathArgs Summary
ReferersReferers Summary
ResultsResults Summary
Reversed Sub DomainsReversed SubDomains Summary
SearchArgsSearchArgs Summary
URLsURLs Summary
Web ServersWeb Servers Summary
Web UsersWeb Users Summary
Click here to go directly to WebSTAR Considerations.

Agents Table

An agent is the type of web browser used by your Web site users. This table contains a row for each web browser used to access your site. Bolero adds new agents to this table automatically the first time the browser is used with your site.

Note


Some web browsers are identified by a code name instead of the commercial name of the browser. For example, Netscape browsers use "Mozilla" as their agent name.

Agents Summary Table

The information from the Agents table is summarized into the Agents Summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

Client Domains Table

The Client Domains table contains detailed information on each client domain, derived from the domain name that accesses the Web server.

Client Domains Summary Table

The information from the Client Domains table is summarized into the Client Domains summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

Domain Names Table

The Domain Names table contains detailed information on each domain name that accesses the Web server. This information is summarized to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated. The following terminology is used to refer to domain names, or parts of domain names.

SyntaxExample
Domain Namewww.everyware.com, watt.eng.uwaterloo.edu
Sub-Domaineveryware.com, eng.uwaterloo.edu
Reversed Sub-Domaincom.everyware, edu.uwaterloo.eng
Client Domaincom, edu


For IP Addresses that cannot be resolved, the IP Address will be broken down in a slightly different manner.

SyntaxExample
Domain Name205.189.228.106
Sub-Domain205.189.228
Reversed Sub-Domain205.189.228 (notice that the address is not reversed)
Client DomainUnresolved

Domain Names Summary Table

The information from the Domain Names table is summarized into the Domain Names summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

EMail Table

Some agents pass e-mail address (the address of the user/client) information to the Web server. This information is stored in the EMail table.

EMail Summary Table

The information from the EMail table is summarized into the EMail summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

Methods Table

When an agent asks a Web server for a particular page, there are a few 'methods' that can be used to access that page. If the page has not been previously accessed by the agent, a 'get' method is issued to request the entire contents of the page. A 'conditional get' asks "has this page changed since the last time it was accessed?" If the answer is 'no', the page does not need to be sent again, since the agent already has a copy of that page in its local cache.

Methods Summary Table

The information from the Methods table is summarized into the Methods summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

PathArgs Table

PathArgs are path arguments, that appear in the URL after a dollar ($) sign.

Example:
http://www.mywebserver1.com/<path to Tango folder>/Tango/
Tango.acgi$/tango/bolero/Reports/cdom.qry?function=
search&webServerID=...

PathArgs Summary Table

The information from the PathArgs table is summarized into the PathArgs summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

Referers Table

Bolero attempts to identify two types of referers: external and internal. If a user accesses a page at your site after linking to it from another site, this other site is called an external referer. When a user hits a page on your site after clicking a link from another page on your site, this previous page is considered an internal referer. Bolero identifies internal referers by checking if the referring URL begins with 'http://' + webServer, where webServer is the registered domain name of a Web server entered in the Bolero Settings file.

Referers Summary Table

The information from the Referers table is summarized into the Referers summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

Results Table

The Results table contains the result code, such as 'ERR!', generated by the Web server for a hit.

Results Summary Table

The information from the results table is summarized into the Results summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

Reversed Sub Domains Table

The Reversed Sub Domains table contains detailed information on each subdomain, derived from the domain name that accesses the Web server.

Example of a reversed subdomain:

SyntaxExample
Domain Namewww.everyware.com, watt.eng.uwaterloo.edu
Sub-Domaineveryware.com, eng.uwaterloo.edu
Reversed Sub-Domaincom.everyware, edu.uwaterloo.eng
Client Domaincom, edu


Reversed sub domains are implemented to make working with sub domains simpler. For example, if you want all data from '*.everyware.com', except data from '*.info.everyware.com', you could exclude the reverse sub domain 'com.everyware.info' in your queries.

Reversed SubDomains Summary Table

The information from the Agents table is summarized into the Reversed SubDomains summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

SearchArgs Table

SearchArgs are arguments that appear in a URL directly after a question (?) mark.

Example:
http://www.mywebserver1.com/<path to Tango folder>/Tango/
Bolero/Reports/cdom.qry?function=form&webServerID=1
Where 'function=form&webServerID=1' is the Search Argument.

SearchArgs Summary Table

The information from the SearchArgs table is summarized into the SearchArgs summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

URLs Table

URLs are Uniform Resource Locators. These are used to locate files on various servers. The URLs table contains detailed information on each URL that is accessed by users of your web site.

URLs Summary Table

The information from the URLs table is summarized into the URLs summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

Web Servers Table

The Web Servers Table contains a unique entry for each Web server logged by Bolero.

Web Servers Summary Table

The information from the Web Servers table is summarized into the Web Servers summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.

Web Users Table

The Web Users table contains detailed information on the Web server, which is provided by registration, or authentication.

Web Users Summary Table

The information from the Web Users table is summarized into the Web Users Summary table to allow a variety of statistical reports to be generated.


WebSTAR Considerations

Once Bolero is actively monitoring your Web server, there are a few things you should know.

How Does Bolero Communicate With WebSTAR?

For every "hit" received on a WebSTAR server, a log entry is generated by WebSTAR and broadcast via AppleEvents. Bolero initiates a Program Linking connection to each WebSTAR server, capturing all these events.

The WebSTAR server also broadcasts a null event every 15 to 30 seconds, which Bolero uses as a 'heartbeat' to monitor the active status of the Web server. This is especially useful for low activity servers whose log information arrives infrequently.

What Happens When the Logging Format Changes?

If you alter the way that your WebSTAR server logs information, these changes will be reflected in Bolero. Any changes made at the WebSTAR server to disable logging of selected information will have the same effect as setting a value to 'Off' in the Logging Information subsection of the Bolero Settings file.

Note


If you alter the way that your WebSTAR server logs information, these changes will be reflected in Bolero. Any changes made at the WebSTAR server to disable logging of selected information will have the same effect as setting a value to 'Off' in the Logging Information subsection of the Bolero Settings file.

Turning Off Logging

Once Bolero is up and running, and you have verified that it is passing the WebSTAR log information to the database, you are free to disable the generation of log files at the WebSTAR server. This will not only free up disk space on your Web server, but also reduce the workload on the server.

Turning Off Domain Name Resolution

By default, Bolero automatically performs domain name resolution on IP addresses received during logging, so you are free to disable domain name resolution at the WebSTAR server. By disabling domain name resolution at the WebSTAR server, you will notice a significant performance improvement.

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