Configuration directory and "include" directive

[MelkorLord]

Hi,

I mainly use GoAccess to generate static HTML reports and I'll like to replace the old AWStats installation.

AWStats featured some really nice options I'd like to have in GoAccess :-) Here are the suggestions:

• Change configuration path from /etc/ to /etc/goaccess/ which allows to have several configuration files for different purposes
• Slightly change the --config-file option : If an absolute file path is provided, use that. If a bare name (without slashes) is provided, use that as a basename for a configuration file within the configuration path. Ex: --config-path=www.domain.tld => GA would try to open /etc/goaccess/www.domain.tld.conf
• Add the "include" directive in the config files on a "last set option wins" basis. Most of the time there's a common set of options for every site you want to generate reports for that you'd put in the main configuration file and specific options per site you'd put in include files.

For example : /etc/goaccess/www.domain.tld.conf

include "goaccess"
# translates to /etc/goaccess/goaccess.conf
# -or- include "/path/to/somefile.conf" => absolute path so no "translation"

... put here specific options such as 
    time-format, date-format, log-format, exclude-ip,
    whatever makes sense

What do you think ?

[allinurl]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions.

• I can certainly change the location of the config file, however, if what you are looking for is to use multiple config files for different sites, then I think you could achieve the same thing by specifying a path using -p /some/path/config/site-a.conf?
• I'm not sure about this. What I understand so far, I think it will break the user's expected behavior of simply opening a file in the current path, especially on autocomplete (shell expansion).
• Right now you could specify the config file with your default options first and override them by specifying them in the command line. For instance, to override the log-format you could do:

     goaccess -p ~/.goaccessrc --log-format=COMBINED

Let me know if that helps.

[MelkorLord]

Hi,

• Changing the location of the config file was on par with the "include" suggestion, just to keep all GA related configurations in a single directory instead of being scattered in /etc.
• A bit of logic would be needed to adjust the command line behaviour, you're right like this :

goaccess -p foobar

1. If "foobar" exists in the current directory, use it.
2. Else try to open "/etc/goaccess/foobar.conf".

but inside the "foobar.conf" file, the "include" directive would work like this :

1. A "relative" path (without slashes) is always searched in "/etc/goaccess"
2. Any non relative path (starting or containing any slash) would be used "as-is".

This way, this does not break the way GA currently works.

• What I'm trying to avoid with the "include" directive is configuration repetition. Most of the time, you end up using the same "skeleton" for common options. After that, you use the specific configuration files containing the very specific directives for the site you're working with.

Of course, this is manageable with the way you mentioned in your third point but I see some drawbacks.

1. On my specific case, I use a quite "long" exclude-ip directives which would be a bit painful to use in the command line each time.
2. It's way easier to modify a config file instead of a script to add/change some overridden option. The script could be more complex than just calling GA.

All the rationale behind the "include" directive is to reduce the errors by eliminating directives duplication in multiple files.

Again, in my particular case : "/etc/goaccess/goaccess.conf" would contain all the common directives to all the sites I manage. Then, "/etc/goaccess/foobar.conf" would only contain a "include goaccess" and all the needed "exclude-ip xxxx" and other specific directives for that particular configuration.

All in all, this a suggestion for improvement, not a requirement :-) I currently use multiple configurations for the sites I manage. It's just that I find it "ugly" to have 4 configuration files sharing "99%" of duplicate content :-)

[allinurl]

Thanks for posting this. I understand now the rationale behind the "include" directive and I do agree that it should help avoid config options duplication.

Please keep this open, I can look into it.

[Synchro]

It didn't occur to me that it wouldn't work this way, and I spent ages trying to figure out how to do it! Putting overrides in a folder is also absolutely vital for config management - as far as possible you always want to leave default configs untouched so that they can be updated by upstream changes without causing clashes or losing changes.

I would vote for /etc/goaccess/goaccess.conf as the master config file, then stick multiple override files in /etc/goaccess/conf.d/. The files should be processed in alphanumeric order so they they may override each other too, and you can change the order by renaming them. This is exactly how nginx (and many other apps) do it.

[ottok]

I think this was addressed in https://github.com/allinurl/goaccess/pull/1395