RE: [logs] Windows logrotation tool?

From: Richardson, Stephan (stericat_private)
Date: Fri May 03 2002 - 12:10:28 PDT

  • Next message: adrianat_private: "RE: [logs] Windows logrotation tool?"

    Noah,
    
    For the Windows crowd, I have heard of little for rotating all the different
    kinds of application specific logs.  Disclaimer, I know little about IIS
    web/ftp logs, but I believe those are a different animal all together, but
    have their own archival/logrotation capabilities.  Probably the same for
    SQL, vendor specific stuff, etc.
    
    For the Windows NT/2000/Xp Event logs, there are few of options.  If you
    want to just roll over the logs, and don't care for past data, just set them
    to overwrite.  If you want to keep older data, you'll have to find to way to
    script a few options using tools from the NT/2000 Resource Kits, or some
    free-ware tools.  By no means are these ideas exhaustive, but I hope they
    steer you (and others) to some optional tools you can use.
    With the Microsoft Resource Kits, DumpEl is a Microsoft tool to dump out the
    log data.  It can be scheduled to occur at regular intervals.  DumpEl just
    dumps the log data, it doesn't clear it.  So you could, dump the data
    weekly, and set the logs to overwrite and keep your log size small to
    trigger the overwrites, and hope you don't miss anything overwritten before
    the next dump cycle.
    Another better, free-ware tool that does more is EventCl by MobiusWare
    http://www.mobiusware.com/freeware  (kudos to Grant and Shane, this tool is
    greatly appreciated!)  This tool will dump and clear the logs, so you can
    schedule this to regularly clear all your System, Security and Application
    Event logs, even remote systems, and archive them to a central repository.
    Of course, they are still in the native Windows Event log format (.evt)
    which is in binary form (to support localization through different dlls for
    EventViewer.  That means to properly view them on a different server, you
    will need the dlls particular to specific applications (like Exchange,
    Terminal Server Edition, etc.) to decode the event error message
    information.
    Another option is to use ActivePerl's Win32::Event:and Win32::EventLog
    modules to read, write, extract, etc that data into a format you desire.  I
    do not know if either module lets you clear the log data or rotate it, but
    you can use other methods to do that and just use Perl to extract what you
    deem necessary.  I imagine if you know enough about Perl, you probably could
    run it from a *nix station with the necessary modules loaded there, without
    having to use them on a NT/2K/Xp station.  
    
    I am actually working a method to take the archived files from the EventCl
    and use ActivePerl to parse them for historical trending, possibly to
    extract desired data to pump into database for better reporting and trending
    analysis.  A later option I might explore is to also use Perl to monitor the
    logs in near real time, for alerting purposes as well.  Of course, someone
    may suggest the vendor supplied route, but you might be better able to roll
    your own, and manage it more to your likely on your fee schedule :)
    
    Steve
    
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Noah White [mailto:nwhiteat_private]
    Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 12:41 PM
    To: 'loganalysisat_private'
    Subject: [logs] Windows logrotation tool?
    
    
    
    Hi,
    
    I'm new to the Windows game and have been looking around for a tool similar
    to logrotate on Unix/Linux. The only one I've come across is the logrotate
    tools which comes with the Win32 version of Apache and that only rotates
    Apache logs.
    
    I looked through the list archives but didn't notice any threads on this
    topic. 
    
    TIA,
    
    -Noah
    
    
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