Using MySQL with Apache

Let us understand how to use MySQL wth Apache −

Apache is a web server software which is developed and maintained by Apache software foundation. It is a software that takes requests from user to access a web page.

A few security checks are performed on the HTTP request and then takes the user to the web page. There are many programs that allow authentication of the users from a MySQL database. These programs can also be used to write the log files into a MySQL table.

The Apache logging format can be easily changed into readable mode by using MySQL, and putting the following lines of code into Apache’s configuration file −

LogFormat \
   "\"%h\",%{%Y%m%d%H%M%S}t,%>s,\"%b\",\"%{Content-Type}o\", \
   \"%U\",\"%{Referer}i\",\"%{User-Agent}i\""

To load a log file in the above mentioned format into MySQL, the statement shown below can be used −

LOAD DATA INFILE '/local/access_log' INTO TABLE tbl_name
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY '"' ESCAPED BY '\'

The name table should be created to have columns such that they correspond to those of the LogFormat line writes in the log file.