Summary runs on many platforms including Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003, Macintosh OS X, Linux running on x86 family hardware, FreeBSD running on x86 family hardware (using the Linux emulator), and Sun SPARC workstations.

You must be running an internet browser while you are running Summary, either on the same machine or on a different machine. Your web browser provides the user interface for both configuring Summary and viewing reports.

Memory requirements vary depending on the size of the log file being analyzed. Six Mg free while running a browser should do it for small log files. Larger log files may require far more memory.

  Step One
Download the appropriate version of Summary for your platform from http://summary.net/download.html. On Windows you should run the "sum-win.exe" and follow the installation instructions. On Macintosh the browser should automatically expand the downloaded archive into a folder. If it doesn't do that you can use Stuffit Expander ™. For all other platforms the browser should expand the archive for you automatically. If it doesn't, keep in mind that the download is a gzipped tar archive. You can usually use a command of the form "tar xfz sum-x86.tar.gz" to extract the archive.

  Step Two
You must get a copy of your log file onto your local machine or on a file system that is mounted on the local machine over the network so that it can be accessed as a normal file. Summary can be configured to download the log files for you but it is easier to get everything working if you do it manually the first time. You can then go back and configure Summary to automatically download your logs once you have Summary working the way you want it to.

If you don't know how get a copy of your logs you should contact your server administrator or web hosting provider for more information on how to get a copy of your log file. The procedure for getting a copy of your log file varies widely between different service providers and server configurations. Your web hosting provider or server administrator is the person who will know how you can get a copy.

  Step Three
Place your log file (or an alias/shortcut/symbolic link to your log file) in the "logs" folder. Logs can be compressed with Zip, GZip, BZip2, or not compressed at all. On Windows, Summary's log folder is located in the same place where you installed the Summary application. By default this is "C:\Program Files\Summary\".

  Step Four
Run the "Summary" application. On Windows, select Summary from the start menu or double-click the Summary application. On Macintosh, double-click the Summary application. On Linux, and Sun change to the directory Summary was installed in and give the command "./summary".

Summary will display a heading including a line like:

Set web browser to "http://your.machine.net:9000/".

The URL inside the quotes, displayed by your copy of Summary, is the Web address you should use to access Summary. If you don't have a static IP address this address may be different each time you launch Summary.

  Step Five
Leaving Summary running, go your web browser and enter the Web address for your copy of Summary (from step four) into the location, address, or URL line of your web browser. This address will be the address of the computer you are running Summary on. If you are having trouble with this you can try the suggestions in the FAQ.

All user interaction with Summary is handled through the web browser.

  Step Six
The first time you run Summary you will need to enter a registration code. You will get a registration code when you purchase your copy of Summary or by getting a 30 day demo registration code from http://summary.net/sum/p/sum?DEMO_KEY.

  Step Seven
Go to the configuration page and enter at least the site descriptive name and the preferred domain name. The configuration page is accessed by clicking on the wrench in the header. Most changes to configuration settings will not take effect until the next time you process the logs.

Do not fill in the "Name required to access configuration" or "Password required to access configuration" fields unless you are sure you really want to password protect your copy of Summary. If you do fill in these fields be sure you make note of the exact value you set them to including correct capitalization and punctuation.

  Step Eight
For Windows and Macintosh you can quit Summary by pressing "Q" on the keyboard while Summary is the current application. On the Macintosh you can also quit summary by selecting "Quit" from the FIle menu. For Linux you can quit Summary by changing to the directory Summary was installed in and giving the command "./summary -quit". When running the Macintosh version from the command line you can quit Summary by changing to the directory Summary was installed in and giving the command "./summary-cli -quit".

For a complete description of all the configuration settings you can go to the Configuration chapter of the manual. If you have more than one domain you should read the Virtual Domain Configuration section. In order to activate all of the Visitors:Browsers and Visitors:Computers reports you will need to install some Javascript code. See Javascript Code Installation section of the manual for more details. If you wish to process your logs incrementally see the Incremental Processing section of the How To section for more information.