Logstalgia (aka ApachePong) is a website access log visualization tool.

Description

Logstalgia is a website traffic visualization that replays or streams Apache web-server access logs as a pong-like battle between the web server and an never ending torrent of requests.

Requests appear as colored balls (the same color as the host) which travel across the screen to arrive at the requested location. Successful requests are hit by the paddle while unsuccessful ones (eg 404 - File Not Found) are missed and pass through.

The paths of requests are summarized within the available space by identifying common path prefixes. Related paths are grouped together under headings. For instance, by default paths ending in png, gif or jpg are grouped under the heading Images. Paths that don’t match any of the specified groups are lumped together under a Miscellaneous section.

The simulation can be paused at any time by pressing space. While paused, individual requests can be inspected by passing over them with the mouse.

Requirements

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

An example access log is included.

News

9 Feb 2010

Logstalgia 0.9.8 has been released.

Changes since 0.9.7:

• Added --background option to control the background colour.
• Filter hostnames from URLs before displaying them.
• Fixed command line option documentation.

4 Feb 2010

Logstalgia 0.9.7 has been released.

This release adds the --sync option. This will synchronize Logstalgia with the next entry received on STDIN, so you can actually watch the log in real time:

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

31 Jan 2010

Logstalgia 0.9.6 has been released. This adds quite a few new features, many ported from Gource. This includes adding PPM output support for recording videos, adding controls to seek to a point in the log file, improving the fonts, and adding some new effects.

Logstalgia also now builds on Mac OS!

Changes since 0.9.2:

• Adjust time scale with <> keys.
• Added seekbar for log files (not available from STDIN).
• Added glow on impact with paddle (turn off using --disable-glow).
• PPM output for videos using --output-ppm-stream option.
• Custom log file format support.
• Changed font library to FTGL.
• --stop-position and --start-position options.
• Open a file selector if no log file supplied (on Windows).

Example Command Lines

Watch an example Apache access.log file using the default settings:

logstalgia data/example.log

Watch the live Apache 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 Apache access.log via ssh. The '-g' option is used here to group together URLs requested containing the string '/adclick.php' under the heading 'Ad Clicks':

ssh user@yourserver.com tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log | logstalgia -g "Ad Clicks,/adclick.php,30" -

NOTE: tailing remote logs is not currently recommended on the Windows version due to buffering issues.