Keep a Record of POPFile's Statistics Over Time

This HOWTO explains how to use two widely used utilities to regularly grab a copy of your POPFile buckets page by email so you can retain a history of your POPFile statistics over time.

Although the instructions here are Windows specific, the methods used can easily be applied to other non-windows platforms by locating a platform specific version of the utilities (or comparable replacements).

How to Mail POPFile Bucket Stats to Yourself

Obtain and install the utilities Blat and wget.

  1. install Blat in a directory in your path, or the POPFile directory
  2. run Blat -install <server address> <senders address> to get Blat configured correctly. Make sure that <server address> points to an smtp server that you are permitted to relay mail thru, usually this will be the same smtp server you set up in your mail client.
  1. install wget in a directory in your path, or the POPFile directory
  1. Use the Wizard to browse to your POPFile installation directory, usually “c:\Program Files\Popfile”, and select the batch file mail_bucket_stats.bat
  2. change the name of the task to Mail Bucket Stats
  3. Select the frequency to run it
  4. Select the time and day(s) to run it
  5. Click finish
  6. Close the task scheduler (or test it by right clicking on the new entry you made and selecting run)

You're done. The task scheduler will run the batch file at the time(s) you scheduled. The batch file will grab a copy of your buckets page and email it off to you. You can then set up a folder in your email client to retain those reports to build a history over time of your accuracy and bucket statistics.