Help Center/ Huawei Cloud Flexus_Huawei Cloud Flexus L Instance/ Best Practices/ Best Practices of Earlier Versions/ Using Matomo to Build a Website Traffic Statistics System (Historical Version)
Updated on 2026-08-27 GMT+08:00
View PDF
Share

Using Matomo to Build a Website Traffic Statistics System (Historical Version)

Scenarios

Matomo is a powerful open-source network analysis platform that has full data ownership and ensures that the business complies with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). FlexusL provides a Matomo application image running on Ubuntu 24.04 and deployed with Docker. The image comes pre-installed with Nginx, MySQL, phpMyAdmin, and Docker. You can use this application image to analyze website data.

This practice applies to FlexusL instances with a Matomo application image purchased before August 28, 2026. For best practices of the new image version, see Using Matomo to Build a Website Traffic Statistics System.

To update the image version, change the OS. This operation will clear the data on the original system disk. Back up the data in advance.

Prerequisites

You have purchased a FlexusL instance with a legacy Matomo application image.

Step 1: Configure Security Groups

Add inbound security group rules to ensure that the application preinstalled in the image can be accessed.

  1. Log in to the FlexusL console and click the target resource card or instance name to go to the instance details page.
  2. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Cloud Servers and click the target server name to view its details.

  3. On the Security Groups tab, click Add Rule to add the rules listed in the following table.

    The following only lists common rules. You can add more rules as needed.

    Table 1 Security group rules

    Priority

    Action

    Type

    Protocol & Port

    Source

    Description

    1

    Allow

    IPv4

    TCP: 80

    0.0.0.0/0

    Specifies the internal forwarding port of application images

    1

    Allow

    IPv4

    TCP: 9001

    0.0.0.0/0

    Allows external access to the application dashboard.

Step 2: Reset the Password and Log In to the FlexusL Instance

This section describes how to log in to a FlexusL instance. A FlexusL instance does not have an initial password. After creating a FlexusL instance, set a password for the FlexusL instance before logging in to it.

  1. In the Image area on the Overview page of the FlexusL console, click Access to go to the application dashboard and check whether the application has been up and running. If yes, go to the next step.

    Wait for several minutes until the application is up and running. Then, you can perform operations such as restarting or stopping the instance, or resetting the password. Otherwise, the initial password may become invalid and you cannot log in to the application dashboard.

    Figure 1 Access to the application dashboard

    After the application is started, the initialization wizard page of the dashboard is displayed.

    Figure 2 Initialization wizard page of the Matomo dashboard

    If the dashboard is not properly displayed, check the following causes:

    • The port for accessing the dashboard is not enabled. Enable it as needed.
    • The dashboard is being started. Try again later.
  2. Locate the resource card and choose > Reset Password. Alternatively, in the list view, click Reset Password in the Operation column to reset the password for the FlexusL instance.

    A FlexusL instance does not have an initial password. Set a password for the FlexusL instance before logging in to it. For details, see Resetting the Password for a FlexusL Instance.

    Figure 3 Resetting a password
  3. Locate the resource card and click Remote Login. Alternatively, in the list view, click Remote Login in the Operation column. In the displayed dialog box, click VNC Login and enter the username and password as prompted to log in to the FlexusL instance. For more login methods, see Login Modes.

    The username is root, and the password is the one you set in the previous step.

Step 3: Initialize Matomo

Application images use code-based Ubuntu. They provide graphical user interfaces to make your operations easier. You need to initialize the application dashboard upon the first login. Then you can directly log in to the dashboard from the FlexusL console afterwards.

  1. On the Overview page, click Access in the Dashboard field in the Image area.

    If the dashboard is not properly displayed, check the following causes:

    • The port for accessing the dashboard is not enabled. Enable it as needed.
    • The dashboard is being started. Try again later.
  2. Click NEXT.
    Figure 4 Initialization wizard page of the Matomo dashboard
  3. Wait until Matomo completes the system check and click NEXT.

    Matomo automatically checks whether the server meets the requirements for installing Matomo and displays the check result for each item.

  4. Set up the MySQL database and click NEXT.

    Matomo comes with MySQL pre-installed and a default database account already configured. The database account information is automatically obtained. Retain the default settings and click NEXT.

  5. After Matomo automatically creates data tables, click NEXT.
  6. On the Superuser page, set the username, password, and email address of the Matomo administrator, and click NEXT.

    The superuser is the user that you created when you installed Matomo. Each Matomo has only one superuser who has the highest permissions. Keep the username and password of the superuser secure.

  7. On the Set up a Website page, add the name and URL of the first website you want to track and analyze with Matomo and click NEXT.

    You can add more websites to track later.

  8. Learn about the JavaScript tracking code and click NEXT.

    To track your web traffic with Matomo, you need to make sure that some extra code is added to each of your webpages. Matomo automatically generates a JavaScript tracking code. After the installation is complete, you can check the tracking code in the Tracking Code admin section.

  9. After the initialization configurations are complete, click Continue to Matomo.
  10. Enter the username and password of the superuser and click SIGN IN.

After the Matomo application is initialized, you can monitor websites on the application dashboard.

Step 4: Use Matomo to Monitor Websites

  1. On the dashboard, click the TRACKING CODE tab and copy the tracking code in the Tracking Code area.

  2. Copy the tracking code to each page of the website you want to monitor.

    Matomo can collect real-time analysis data of the website with the tracking code.

    For details about how to install the Matomo tracking code, see official documentation.

  3. Select All Websites to view the access to the monitored websites.

Parent Topic: Best Practices of Earlier Versions