I have a plug-in that I am distributing via an Eclipse update site. I want to track how many times it is being downloaded, and preferably by whom.
For regular pages on my site, I can use Google analytics. However, Eclipse doesn't use any HTMLs when going for update sites.
Is there any way to do this when I don't have access to the hosting apache?
AFAICT, your only option is to work with web server logs. I wrote this article about tracking Update Site downloads using AWStats, but it requires some server side tweaking. This is just one time set up, though. After that, you use AWStats using its' web interface.