Using NCID on Two Phone Lines
After using Network Caller ID (NCID) for over a year, I decided to add it to my business phone line, as that line was beginning to get spam calls. Unfortunately, setting NCID up to auto-answer two modem-based phone lines is not possible without a lot of modification. It turned out that the easiest way to do this was to use a second Raspberry Pi and modem (see Stopping Rachel from Cardholder Services for links and instructions on setting up a first NCID server.) When you install a second NCID modem server, you will want to uncomment set lineid and put in the last four digits of the phone number so that you can tell which line was called:
############################
# Set the line indicator if you want it displayed for the modem.
# or if you have more than one telephone line. The default value
# for lineid is '-' and is not displayed. Setting it to any other
# value will display it.
#
# You can set lineid to 'POTS' (Plain Old Telephone Service) to
# have it displayed or the last 4 digits of your number if you
# have more than one telephone line.
# lineid default: -
set lineid = 0123
To configure NCID so that all calls were reported to the same server required some additional configuration for the ncid2ncid service.
Configuring ncid2ncid for Consolidated Phone Log
Adding NCID protection for the second phone line was easy, but it took me a while to figure out how to consolidate the call log. The ncid2ncid service is the key to consolidating information from multiple NCID modem servers to a single NCID server for reporting purposes. The configuration information is cryptic, but straightforward. On the consolidating server, you will need to modify the ncid2ncid.conf file with information connecting the two servers:
# ##############################
# receiving NCID host and port #
# ##############################
# Set the receiving NCID host address
# Default Address: 127.0.0.1
set tohost = 192.168.0.3
# Set the NCID port
# Default Port: 3333
# set toport = 3334
# #############################################
# first sending NCID host and port (required) #
# #############################################
# Set the sending NCID host address
# Default Address: none
set fromhost1 = 192.168.0.4
# Set the sending NCID port
# Default Port: 3333
# set fromport1 = 3334
It is easiest to set this up on the receiving server, but it could actually go anywhere on the network. To start the ncid2ncid service, use the command
sudo service ncid2ncid restart
Setting up ncid2ncid for Autostart after Boot
ncid2ncid will not start automatically after boot unless you enable it. On the Raspberry Pi, use this command to add it to the startup list:
sudo update-rc.d ncid2ncid defaults
Looking at Calls For Second Line
Having a consolidated server is great, but there are times when you will want to look only at calls from the second phone line. To do this, just start multiple NCID clients:
ncid consolidated-server
ncid second-line-server
Related Articles
For additional information, you may be interested in other articles on NCID and stopping phone spam:
- Stopping Rachel from Cardholder Services covers multiple ways to address phone spam, including setting up an NCID server.
- Download and Format the FTC Robocall Complaint List for NCID shows how to download and format the FTC complaint list to give you a list of spammers before they call you.
- Using NCID on Two Phone Lines shows how to add a second modem to your NCID configuration.
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Using OwnCloud to Provide Cloud Data Services on Joomla
When I had to transfer a 2.5 gigabyte file about a year ago, I ran into problems with all of the cloud storage accounts available to both the sender and to me; none would take a file larger than 2G–even the paid accounts. This started me on a the path to investigate self-administered cloud storage accounts. I was also frustrated with the difficulty of sharing consolidated address books and was independently looking for something that would help with that challenge. While taking the train in to town for a meeting, I read a Linux Journal article Synchronize Your Life with ownCloud, and decided to investigate the ownCloud package described in the article.
After running it for several months on a server behind my firewall, I decided that there were significant cost benefits to running ownCloud on my business and a client web site under Joomla. The article that follows describes the cost benefits and other considerations in setting up ownCloud on your website and how to set it up. The article is divided into the following sections:
Running Your Own Cloud Services can be Less Expensive
If you need the permanence of a paid cloud storage account, multiple collaborators can quickly become quite expensive: the Box Starter service is $5 per month per collaborator. For a sole proprietor with 20 customers as collaborators, this would be $105 per month. Similarly, if you need to use files greater than 2 gigabytes, Box Business is $15 per month per collaborator, with a three collaborator minimum. When compared to $20 per month for a 40G virtual private server (VPS), $50 per month for a 90G VPS or $120 per month for a 500G managed physical server, the business case for setting up your own cloud storage can quickly become compelling.
Running Your Own Cloud Services Add Responsibilities and Costs
If you choose to run your own cloud services, you will have several additional responsibilities as a web site administrator:
- Your site should run SSL (HTTPS) session encryption, so you will need to go to the additional effort and in some cases expense of obtaining and installing an SSL certificate. Why and How to Set Up SSL/HTTPS on Your Web Site talks about how to do this and to obtain a free certificate. If you are already running SSL, this is not really an additional expense.
- Your backup and recovery process must be enhanced to handle more data, and will probably have to occur much more frequently.
- You will need to set up a process for managing and backing up encryption keys for ownCloud’s static file encryption. You do not have to enable encryption, but you will probably want to do so on a public site.
- You may need to make modifications to your site’s Terms and Conditions and Privacy statements.
Addressbook and Calendar Sharing Limitations in OwnCloud
When I switched my address book to Google some time ago, I did so primarily to get access to the de-dup capability in Gmail. OwnCloud does not have this capability, and I'm sure that there are other capabilities that are missing. I have not been able to get Thunderbird to work with ownCloud at this point.
There are Several Alternatives for Joomla Web Site Cloud Services
For a Joomla business web site, there are an increasing number of alternatives for cloud services built into your web site:
- owncloud is in the most robust alternative, but single password and single-signon configuration is not simple.
- PH Cloud is a Joomla extension that may provide some of the services available in ownCloud. A discussion on this extension is beyond the scope of this article.
- JoomDOC is a Joomla extension offers paid versions that support WebDAV and which may provide the some aspects of cloud storage services. A discussion of this extension is beyond the scope of this article.
- DPCalendar is a Joomla extension that offers CalDAV support. A discussion of this extension is beyond the scope of this article.
For an up-to-date list of Joomla extensions, search the Joomla extensions directory with “webdav”, “carddav”, and “webdav”.
Unified Authentication is the Challenge
The biggest drawback to running ownCloud under your Joomla site is that users will need to log in to web interface to ownCloud separately from logging in your Joomla site. There are some ways to get this to a single password, and perhaps single signon, but the are not trivial to implement. As I experiment, this section will be revised with a recommended approach, but this may take some time as some of the ownCloud plugins that are of interest are not yet supported on ownCloud 8.2. Here are the approaches that appear to be alternatives:
- Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is probably the best supported method, but this requires either a VPS or a managed server, as LDAP is configured at the server level rather thena the web-hosting level. This is not trivial to set up.
- OwnCloud has an abandoned Joomla plugin, user_joomla_auth, that may be possible to enhance and make work for single password and single signon.
- OwnCloud has an SQL-based plugin, user_sql, that may be able to read Joomla user tables and provide a single password solution, though not single signon.
- There may be some Oauth solutions available, but this appears to require PHP extensions that may or may not be accessible for web hosting sites where you cannot install PHP extensions.
Preparing to Install OwnCloud on a Joomla Site
Before you begin the installation process for ownCloud, you will need to make some changes in your server to prepare for the installation. The first step is configuring your .htaccess file to allow access to the installer and to the ownCloud directory. Figure 1 shows how to enable access to the installer in Akeeba Admin Tools’ .htaccess generator, while Figure 2 shows how to enable access to the ownCloud directory. It may be possible to restrict these permissions further.
Configuring .htaccess in Akeeba Admin Tools
.htaccess generator.
.htaccess generator.
Installing memcached
Although it is not strictly required, there are significant performance benefits to installing and configuring memcached or some other cache manager for ownCloud to use. It is likely that this is already installed on your web host, but if it is not, you may wish to ask your hosting firm to install it.
Installing LibreOffice
If you want to provide a web-based viewing and editing platform similar to Google Docs, you will need to install LibreOffice on the server; if you have a VPS or managed host, this will be easy, but if you are on a web hosting account, getting your provider to do this might be a challenge.
Installing OwnCloud on a Shared Host
Installing ownCloud on a shared host is fairly simple. The Web installer tab on the download web page on the owncloud web site shown in Figure 3 lists instructions for installing on a shared host account, while the other tabs cover other installation scenarios. The most straight-forward for web hosting sites is to download setup-owncloud.php and upload it to the installation directory/subdomain that you have created on your site(likely owncloud). From there, bring up https://yourdomain.com/owncloud/setup-owncloud.php and follow the prompts during installation. If you encounter problems, make sure that you allowed access to setup-owncloud.php in your .htaccess file.
Configuring OwnCloud
Once you have installed ownCloud, you should access the administrative tools to configure your installation. To get to the admin tools, select the pull-down by your user ID in the upper right corner of the screen, as shown in Figure 4. You will probably want to do the following configuration tasks:
- Enable encryption
- Configure memcached
- Install ownCloud plugins
Enable Encryption
Most installations will probably choose to enable encryption, but make sure that you have a key-file backup process in place before you do so. Figure 5 shows the admin section for enabling encryption.
Configure memcached
Although it is not strictly required, there are significant performance benefits to enabling memcached or some other caching service. To set this up, you will need to place the code shown in Figure 6 in the owncloud/config/config.php file–assuming that you installed into the owncloud directory. The ownCloud Administration Manual has extensive instructions on configuring memcached and other cache managers.
'memcache.local' => '\OC\Memcache\Memcached',
'mecached_servers' => array (
array('localhost',11211)
),
Installing OwnCloud Plugins
At this point, you have a working installation of ownCloud, but there are a number of additional features that you will probably want to add by enabling the respective plug-ins, as shown in Figure 7. Some of the plugins you will likely enable include:
- Encryption
- External storage
- External user support
- Documents
- Calendar
- Contacts
- OwnBackup
The external storage plugin allows you to access Dropbox, Box and Google Drive accounts to get consolidate access to various cloud services. To enable a plug, choose “Apps” in the pulldown panel in the upper left, and enable plugins (apps) as shown in Figure 7.
>
Configuring External Storage
To consolidate access to multiple cloud storage accounts, you can configure external storage within ownCloud, either at the system level or at the user user level. If you set this up at the system level, this may be a way to get more collaborating users without incurring the additional cost of collaborating users in the cloud storage account. Before doing this, you should review the terms and conditions for your cloud storage account.
If you have multiple Dropbox, Box and Google Drive accounts, defining them as external storage can allow you to get simultaneous access–something that cannot generally be done with the native Dropbox, Box and Google Drive accounts. Figure 8 shows the external storage definition options; for Box, choose WebDAV.
>
Client Side Configuration
Although there are a number of situations where you will want to use the web interface, the real power of cloud storage is through the client programs that sync accross desktops, laptops, phones and tablets. OwnCloud has applications for each of these environments. One major advantage of the ownCloud clients is that the allow access to multiple ownCloud accounts, which is a real bonus in keeping your work and personal data separated.
Installing and Configuring the Desktop Application on Windows, OS X and Ubuntu
The OwnCloud desktop applications for Ubuntu, OS X and Windows are all very similar and all have the advantage of allowing you to connect to multiple OwnCloud accounts unlike Box and Dropbox. The only significant difference is in where you add additional accounts. In the Ubuntu client, you add additional accounts on the main sync panel, while in OS X and Windows, you must go to the General Settings panel to add additional accounts. Figure 9 shows the sync panel for the Ubuntu client.
Android Applications for OwnCloud
There are several Android applications that will sync with OwnCloud. Most of the applications are forks of the open source sync application provided by ownCloud.org, while others are proprietary apps that require a free or paid ownCloud plugin. In some cases, universities and business have created apps that are hard-coded to work only with their ownCloud installation.Here are a few of the Android applications:
- ownCloud ($0.99)
- ocloud (free fork of ownCloud)
- ownNote ($0.99)
- Cernbox (free fork of ownCloud)
- Lots of CalDAV sync
In whichever Android application you choose, you will probably want to update the settings to automatically upload photos from your phone, but to do so only when connected to Wi-Fi, as shown below in Figure 10.
>
Configuring Single Password and Single Signon
This section will be updated as I work out the best way to configure this.
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HTTPS Security Problems with Key Exchange Configuration
When configuring a web server, it is important to choose the cipher suite to avoid encryption algorithms that have been compromised. Recent research has discovered a new attack that exploits the Diffie-Hellman key exchange used by HTTPS, SSH, and VPNs. The attack is currently only feasible for nation-state organizations, as it require s a tremendous amount of computing power (a $1B computer running for a year) to break commonly used prime numbers, but once broken, decryption is computationally relatively easy. The team of researchers, led by Alex Halderman of the University of Michigan and Nadia Heninger of the University of Pennsylvania estimates that about 18% of the top 1 million domains, roughly 10% of email servers, 25% of SSH servers (used by system administrators) and 25% of VPNs are configured in a vulnerable way.
To test your web server, the Qualsys SSL Labs web site provides an easy to use web service that emulates a number of browsers and tests your SSL certificates and configuration. The first banking web site that I tested, Frostbank.com came up with a score of A and no Diffie-Hellman vulnerabilities. The second banking web site that I tested, bankofthewest.com showed a score of B with weak Diffie-Hellman exchange parameters. My website intially showed a C using the default settings in WHM (All -SSLv2 -SSLv3), but by changing the cipher suite in WHM to an explcit list that remove the RC4 cipher, it now shows an A-. Fixing the problem to get from A- to A will appears to involve some software changes rather than just a configuration change.
The downside to this removing old ciphers is that it appears that I now get no traffic from out-of-support web browsers as they can no longer get to my site. In the long term, this is good as these users will get a message that they need to upgrade to more secure browser technology. The report on Qualsys SSL shows the OS/Browser combinations than may no longer work with the new restricted cipher suite:
- Native Internet Explorer on Windows XP and earlier
- Native browser Android 4.3 and earlier
- Safari on Apple OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) and earlier
- Safari on iOS 6.1 and earlier
For users on these operating systems, installing Chrome or Firefox would allow them to connect to my site and other sites that use a restricted cipher list. Interestingly, running the SSL test on gmail.com shows a grade of B due to support for several old protocols including RC4.
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Windows Upgrade Experience–HP Probook 4520s with VeraCrypt
The end of this article has suggestions on resolving shutdown/sleep problems on the HP Probook 4520s.
My HP 4520s (Intel i5 that was new in winter of 2011) laptop runs Windows 7 Professional and is encrypted with VeraCrypt 1.0-f–Windows 7 Professional does not have Bitlocker as part of the feature set. My initial limited research showed that I could upgrade in place, but the upgrade process failed during the reboot/install phase. It prompted for rebooting into the old operating system which it did without incident. I then waited a couple of weeks and did some more research, which indicated both that I probably needed to upgrade to VeraCrypt 1.16 and perhaps decrypt the drive before the upgrade. Upgrading to VeraCrypt 1.16 did not break anything, but attempting to upgrade on the encrypted drive still failed.
After decrypting the drive (about 3.5 hours), the Windows 10 upgrade went smoothly (about an hour). After the upgrade, everything appears to work fine, but the battery drain in sleep mode is much faster than normal at the moment. The system definitely performs much better after the upgrade. Figures 1 and 2 show the messages that you will get if you try to do the upgrade without decrypting a Veracrypt boot drive before the upgrade. Figure 3 shows the time estimate for decrypting the VeraCrypt boot drive, and Figure 4 shows the beginning of the upgrade process after decrypting the boot drive.
Messages from Attempt to Upgrade without Decrypting
Ongoing Problems with Power Management, Sleep and Shutdown
This machine is generally much faster than before the upgrade to Windows 10; it had become almost unusably slow even after a format/reinstall. It is now quite usable.
Power management is an ongoing problem with this laptop. It frequently wakes up from sleep while the lid is closed and then runs the battery down. Virus scans and the other actions recommended by HP have thus far been unsuccessful.
The machine also developed a problem where it would neither shutdown nor sleep. The HP web site has an article on how to fix shutdown/sleep problems but none of these worked on the Probook 4520s, as it apparently uses earlier versions of drivers. There were no updated drivers on the HP site, nor were there updated drivers that would install on the Intel web site. Strangely, the Cygwin shutdown -r +0, shutdown --suspend +0 and shutdown -h +0 commands all work properly to restart, suspend, and shutdown the computer properly. I have no idea why the Windows user interface alternatives do not work. The shutdown command is not part of the base Cygwin install–you have to manually select it.
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Using Matomo (formerly Piwik) as an Alternative to Google Analytics
Many webmasters use Google Analytics to understand how their website is accessed and used. In some cases Google Analytics is not a good fit for a website; in these cases, Matomo can be a good alternative in some situations:
- Your website is an internal Intranet site behind a firewall.
- You want information that you cannot get from Google Analytics:
- The Matomo Visitor log is enlightening for low volume sites:
- You need information on browser plugin installation to aid site design.
- You want information on how frequently search engine bots access your site.
- You want to retroactively (or actively) analyse a site using server logs.
- You don’t want Google to have access to your traffic information. This is a common issue for large businesses.
- You are big enough that you have to pay for Google Analytics, and the cost of operating your own measurement network is less expensive.
- You cannot accept Google’s Terms of Service for Google Analytics.
It is important to note that there are significant reasons to favor using Google Analytics over Matomo:
- If you comply with GA terms and conditions, Google will largely prevent you from major privacy violations with respect to analytics.
- Google Analytics is easier, since there is no installation or site maintenance.
- Google Analytics runs on their servers and does not alter your site performance.
The sections that follow describe how to install and configure Matomo on a Joomla server (WordPress is very similar), followed by a review of the major features in Matomo. The article is divided into the following sections:
- Installing Matomo
- Joomla Configuration
- Matomo Plugins
- Using Matomo
- Matomo Mobile Interface
- Plugins and the Matomo Marketplace
Prior to January, 2018, Matomo was called Piwik. The name change resolved some trademark and trademark use issues.
Installing Matomo
The Matomo installation instructions are quite good, but do not address some of the things you will need to do for external systems; these instructions are not a replacement for the standard instructions, but should be considered a supplement.
The major steps for installing Matomo are similar to to those for installing Joomla (or WordPress for that matter):
- Use cPanel to create a MySQL database and user ID
- Modify the .htaccess file to allow direct access to
piwik.php - Copy the piwik.zip install file to a subdirectory on your site and unzip it
- Call install.php from browser and follow the prompts
- Configure website tracking in Matomo
- Configure Matomo plugin in Joomla (or WordPress)
Allow direct access to piwik/piwik.php in .htaccess
None of the install instructions talk about this step, and many web references will tell you that you can bypass an error in the Matomo configuration prerequisite test (see Figure 8)–you can, but Matomo won’t record any measurements. If you have Akeeba Admin Tools installed and have used it generate your .htaccess file, you will need to add piwik.php to the direct access exceptions list, as shown in Figures 1 and 2.
In Web Hosting Manager, enable use of subdomains for piwik.yourdomain.name
Once you have modified your .htaccess file, you will need to log in to Web Hosting Manager and/or cPanel to set up a subdomain, MySQL database, and MySQL user ID. If you plan to use a subdomain, you will need to enable this is WHM as shown in Figure 3 before creating the subdomain in cPanel as shown in Figure 4.
In cPanel, create MySQL database
The next step is to use cPanel to create the MySQL database for Matomo, as shown in Figure 5. The database can have any name, but you will need to record the name to use later during the installation process. Once you have created the database, you will need to generate a user ID for it as shown in Figure 6.
Unzip piwik.zip in a Subdirectory and Call install.php in Browser
The next step is copy the piwik installation file to a subdirectory (the one you used for the subdomain definition) and unzip it. Point your browser to the URL for index.php and follow the dialog as shown in Figure 7. If you did not make the change to .htaccess described earlier, you will get the error message shown in Figure 8. You can continue the install successfully, but you will not be able to get any measurement to work until you update the .htaccess file.
When you get to the prompt for a table prefix, use a random string instead of “piwik_” as prompted by the default install. Using a random string for the table prefix makes it harder for attackers to do an SQL injection attack against your Matomo installation. The default Joomla installer does this for you, but the Matomo installer does not.
Create the Matomo super user
During the Matomo install, you will create a super user ID as shown in Figure 9. Make sure to uncheck the boxes unless you want to get marketing mailings from the company that develops Matomo.
Define a website for tracking
The last step in the install process is defining a website for tracking as shown in Figure 10. Make sure to record the site ID, as you will need this when configuring the tracking plugin on your site.
Set up Matomo settings according to privacy laws in your jurisdiction
The last required step on the Matomo side of configuration is to set the privacy options that you want to use. Note that the default setting is not to honor do-not-track browser settings; Google Analytics does not honor this, but instead requires that you install a browser add-in. You will need to include instructions on how to opt out of tracking in your privacy policy, and you will need to set the IP anonymizer settings for your jurisdiction. A discussion of the relevant laws is far beyond the scope of this article.
This is an area where using Google Analytics is much easier; if you comply with the GA terms and conditions, you will probably be largely in compliance with relevant laws, since Google is a global company and wants to avoid problems. With Matomo, you will have to figure everything out on your own.
Joomla Configuration
Once you have installed and configured the Matomo, side you will need to configure tracking within your Joomla (or WordPress) site. There are several plugins for Joomla, but Eorisis Matomo Plugin for Joomla is probably the most full-featured. It has the advantage of omitting tracking code when the user’s browser is set to do-not-track, which makes implementing the privacy policy easier.
Figure 12 shows the Eorisis plugin configuration. You will need to enter the URL for the Matomo measurement server, and the site ID that you defined for this web site. For some tracking options, you will need the user or superuser API key available in the Matomo user settings.
Figure 13 shows the configuration for privacy settings; note that by default, the setting to honor do-not-track is disabled; in this screen capture it is enabled. In the Eorisis plugin, it will not insert the tracking code if do-not-track is set in the browser–you will need to remember to test using a browser that does not send the do-not-track setting.
Matomo Plugins
Matomo offers a number of plugins to add function to the measurement and reporting server. Here are a few that you will almost certainly want to install:
- Free
- Provider–this provides information on the user’s ISP similar to that in Google Analytics.
- SecurityInfo–this provides a useful audit of your installation’s PHP security settings.
- BotTracker–this provides a log of when various bots visited your site, and can be useful in knowing where your webmaster tools settings are incorrect.
- TreemapVisualizer–this gives you a treemap similar to that found in Google Analytics
- ReferrerManager–this gives additional control of tracking referrers and blocking referral spam.
- IP2Location–this is an alternative to the built-in geoIP tools
- LoginLdap–for large installations, this gives you single-signon capability through LDAP
- Paid
- ClickPath–this provides a behavior flow chart that is similar to the one in Google Analytics.
- UserGroups–this provides roles and user groups for larger installations.
Using Matomo
Once you have installed Matomo, you will want to start using it. There is a great demo capability provided at the Matomo demo site. The sections that follow will help give you an idea of what Matomo can do so that you can explore the key features more thoroughly in the Matomo demo.
The Matomo dashboard shown in Figure 14 has a very concise measurement view of your web site's activity, while the Visitor Log shown in Figures 15 and 16 was probably the deciding factor in my decision to at least add Matomo and perhaps to switch to it. For small sites, the navigation path information in Matomo gives a great deal of information that Google Analytics does not.
The Matomo software log gives a lot of detail on OS and browser
The software log in Matomo gives version and plugin configuration information that Google Analytics does not. This can be useful in both website design and in determining testing configurations for other software that you may develop.
The Matomo engagement report is a concise summary
The Engagement Report is a concise summary of user engagement with your site as measured by the time they spend during a session, the number of times they come back, and the number of actions that they take while visiting your site.
The Matomo visit time report is great look at time-of-day analysis for a web site
The Visit Time report gives a great look at when people visit your site both from the perspective of their local time, and the perspective of the server. The local time report is useful comparing behavior across time zones, while the server time report is useful for planning service and maintenance outages.
The Matomo Pages report has page generation time information that is very useful
One of the most useful items in the Matomo Page Report is the page generation time–something that is not reliably available in Google Analytics–at least for my site. The page generation time can help you figure out the cause for performance problems and how to go about allocating time to address them.
The Matomo outlinks report is a very helpful summary of what links people use
The Outlinks report shown in Figure 21 shows the outbound links that were used across your site; this is invaluable in figuring out what links and link text users find helpful and what links the do not find helpful.
The Matomo downloads report shows which files people download
The Downloads Report shown in Figure 22 shows what files were downloaded; this is another way to identify the types of files that visitors find useful and link text that works in identifying useful files.
The Matomo referrer overview gives a good look at how traffic originates
The referrer overview, referrer detail and search engine reports shown in Figures 23, 24 and 25 give useful information on how visitors got to your site. They are very different from Google Analytics, in that they treat all of the search engines equally and can give a better picture of search, social media and link paths to your site.
The Matomo website/social network report gives a good look at social media effectiveness
The Website/Social Network Report shows what links on other sites are sending traffic to you, and is a good gauge of your social media effectiveness.
Matomo Mobile Interface
Matomo has a cell phone app as well, with most of the same reporting functionality as the web version, but very little of the configuration capabilities.
Plugins and the Matomo Marketplace
Matomo has a number of plugins to add functionality. These are installed from the Matomo Marketplace as shown in Figure 32. Plugins must be activated as shown in Figure 33.
The security plugin (Settings->Diagnostic) looks a PHP and other settings
The security plugin shown in Figure 34 gives recommendations on changing PHP settings to improve security for your Matomo installation.
The optional GeoLocation database gives much better location accuracy than browser language
Most Matomo users will want to enable one of the IP-based geolocation modules. The easiest approach is to download from the databases at the bottom of the Geolocation panel as shown in Figures 35 and 36. You will need to choose which of the GeoIPLite free databases or GeoIP paid databases to use.
The bandwidth plugin requires modified tracking code or tracking by log import
The bandwidth plugin provides a function that I have not found in Google Analytics, but using this plugin requires that you modify the tracking code to pass a bandwidth use parameter. For most users, this is not feasible. Figure 37 shows the bandwidth plugin instructions.
The BotTracker plugin gives you information about when bots scan (or don't) your site
The BotTracker plugin is also a function not found in Google Analytics. This plugin is useful for finding out which search engines are indexing your site and which are not. Figure 38 shows the configuration panel, while Figure 39 shows the report panel, and shows that Bing is not indexing this site regularly.
Conclusions
After working with Matomo for a week, it has a number of features that provide information that Google Analytics does not–and clearly lacks the demographic and ad integration features that Google Analytics supports. For some sites it could be a replacement while for others it may make sense as an additional analytics measurement tool.
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