minimal-analytics

Read more about the project at cri.dev - "Making Minimal Analytics"

See Minimal Analytics in action

Table of contents

• requirements
• how to self-host
• local installation
• tests

requirements

• node.js 16+ (16.16.0 lts recommended)

how to self-host

1. clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/christian-fei/minimal-analytics.git

2. create a production configuration for docker-compose

cp docker-compose.yml docker-compose.prod.yml

change the environment variable STATS_BASE_URL to your own domain for minimal-analytics, e.g. https://stats.example.com

change the environment variable SITE_BASE_URL to your own domain for the site you want to track, e.g. https://example.com

3. run the service

run the update.sh script to start the server

4. include client.js in your site

replace STATS_BASE_URL with your own domain for minimal-analytics, e.g. https://stats.example.com and include the following in your site

<script async defer src="https://STATS_BASE_URL/client.js"></script>

optional: 5. configure nginx

configure the nginx reverse proxy like so:

sudo cp nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/minimal_analytics

changing the placeholder YOUR_STATS_DOMAIN to e.g. stats.example.com, in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/minimal_analytics file.

then link to the enabled sites

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/minimal_analytics /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/minimal_analytics

and reload nginx

sudo systemctl reload nginx
# or
sudo nginx -s reload

local installation

install the server dependencies with

npm i

and then install the client dependencies in the dashboard directory

cd dashboard
npm i

build client

the client uses parcel as a asset bundler.

you can run a build of the dashboard, the output will be in dashboard/dist and served from http://127.0.0.1:8080 when starting the server

cd dashboard
npm run build

start minimal-analytics - with npm

Run touch data/data.ljson to create an empty file used to keep track of pageviews.

Set the environment variables STATS_BASE_URL and SITE_BASE_URL and run npm start, e.g.

SITE_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8081 STATS_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8080 npm start

alternatively, using direnv, create a .env file by copying the example file: cp .env.example .env and configure the variables.

The configured site to track is running on http://127.0.0.1:8081, described by SITE_BASE_URL

The minimal-analytics server runs at STATS_BASE_URL http://127.0.0.1:8080

start minimal-analytics - with docker-compose

configure the environment variables in docker-compose.yml regarding STATS_BASE_URL and SITE_BASE_URL.

STATS_BASE_URL is the location where the minimal-analytics is running, e.g. https://stats.example.com

SITE_BASE_URL is the location of the site you want to allow tracking, e.g. https://example.com

Run the service with

docker-compose up -d --build --remove-orphans --renew-anon-volumes

tests

Run touch data/test.ljson to create an empty file used for tests

Run npm t in the root of the project to run the server tests.

If you want to run the client dashboard tests, npm t in the dashboard directory