Statistical information

To let you know what passes through your system, WaterGate keeps track of all mail that passes through your system. It counts the size and amount of all messages - both received and sent - and stores that information in a separate logfile, called WTRGATE.STA by default. This file is located in the same directory you choose for the logfile. It also uses the name of the logfile, but with the extension .STA. New information is appended to it after each run of WaterGate.

Format of the WTRGATE.STA file

A sample entry:
Statistics report of toss on Mon 05 Jun 1995 21:37:54
 m 1952 dutchman@mbh.network.nl (Jaap Aap%2:280/802.6)
 m 1210 sysop@waste.bin.network.nl (Jaap Aap%2:280/802.6)
 n 894 Jaap Aap%2:280/802.6 (dutchman@mbh.network.nl)
 u 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 49546 2:512/17@fidonet.org (Piet Hein)
 v 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 14 2:512/17@fidonet.org (Piet Hein)
 u 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2263 LOCAL
 v 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 LOCAL
 b 2263 1 WLINK.TEST
 b 12778 3 HOLLAND.SYSOP
 b 733 1 POINTS.028
 b 3124 2 OVERIG.028
 b 6328 5 FS.028
 b 643 1 FDECHO.028
 b 3309 2 ALT.BBS.WATERGATE
The first line contains the date and time of the run. When a new statistics file is started, WaterGate will write a short explanation of the different lines, so the first line could be followed by a number of information lines, but these all start with a space.

Each line that starts with the letter 'u' or 'v' contains information about a user that sent or received messages during the run. Only users that either sent or received messages are shown. The 'u' lines holds the number of bytes sent/received and the 'v' line holds the number of messages sent/received.

Each 'u' or 'v' line has the following fields:

MailTo
UUCP mail sent to this node.

MailFrom
UUCP mail received from this node.

NewsTo
UUCP news sent to this node.

NewsFrom
UUCP news sent received from this node.

NetTo
FidoNet netmail sent to this node.

NetFrom
FidoNet netmail received from this node.

EchoTo
FidoNet echomail sent to this node.

EchoFrom
FidoNet echomail received from this node.

Name
User identification, plus SysOp name or UUCPname between the braces. Messages that originate from a messagebase are counted as "LOCAL".
The flow of messages in each area is shown in the 'b' lines. The old 'a' lines are now obsolete and not produced anymore. Every 'b' line contains the traffic in that area in number of bytes and number of messages and the name(s) of the area. Again, only areas that had any traffic are shown.

When an area has a different name for FidoNet and UUCP, then the UUCP name is listed as second name as well. The exact format of the 'b' line is:

"b" space <flow in bytes> space <number of messages> space <fidonet area name> [space <uucp area name>]
Between the [ and ] is optional.

Each netmail and mail message passing through your system is tracked in the 'm' (mail) and 'n' (netmail) lines. This is information on netmail and mail messages and their size. The MsgTo and MsgFrom field contain the destination and source address of the message, for fido messages as username%fidoaddr and for UUCP messages as user@domain.

The WtrStat program

You can use WTRSTAT.EXE, included in the WaterGate archive, to process the statistics file and make ASCII graphs of the message traffic passing through your system. If you want graphs number 1, 2, and 3 created, you can start the program with the following command:
C:\MAIL\LOGS>wtrstat wtrgate.sta 1 2 3
WTRSTAT will create the files GRAPH1.TXT, GRAPH2.TXT, and GRAPH3.TXT in the program startup directory.

Possible graphs

The program is capable of proceeding eight different graphs:
  1. Message traffic in each of the areas.
  2. Volume and a graphical overview of the traffic from this system to each other system.
  3. Volume and a graphical overview of the traffic from each other system to this system.
  4. Flow in each area and the total flow in all of the areas, for as far as there has been a flow in those areas.
Graphs 5 through 8 are the same as graphs 1 through 4, but hold the information in number of messages, instead of number of (kilo)bytes.

Command line options

The program accepts a number of options as well. Options have to be preceded with a forward slash (/) or dash (-). The following options can be used:
-Dn
"Days". Makes a report for the last <n> days, starting to count with today=1. -D1 creates a report over today, up to the last data added. -D7 creates a report for the last week, including today.

-A
"Amount". Sorts the area listing in graph 4 or 8 by amount, in descending order. The area with the highest number of messages or bytes is shown first, and so on.

-N
"Name" With this option you can tell WtrStat to use the UUCP area name in graphs 4 and 8, instead of the FidoNet areaname.
The WtrStat program will first get and check all the command line options, then read the statistics file to gather all the information and finally create all the requested graphs.
Back to Table of Contents or continue to the next section.

Comments or questions? Send an e-mail to editor@wsd.wline.se.

Last updated 13 October 1996