netscape server connections

[Nobody's Hero]

If I have a public facing netscape web server, how can you tell how many open connections there are to the server? I can tell when the server gets busy but figuring out how many people are actually connecting to the web site leaves me clueless.

Would I need to do this from the internet router or is there a way to get the info from the web server?

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

The problem is more difficult than you think.

Because some of your clients may be behind a proxy, the number of connections may not be directly proportional to the number of users. A group of users behind a caching proxy may look like just one user.

Some web browsers may also use multiple connections in parallel, in an attempt to speed up page loading.

Because HTTP has no concept of a session by itself, you cannot easily tell how many users you have.

By running your web server logs through a log analyzer program, you may be able to get some useful numbers.

For example, the free Analog:
http://www.analog.cx/

If your website has a concept of session, it does something to make each user unique, whether it is a dynamically generated URI, a cookie or something else. You may be able to use this mechanism to produce a count of unique users too.

MK