reporting programs

[pmueller]

I am looking for a reporting program to parse the logs in a way that I can hand reports to management. Anyone have one they like? E.G. They would like to see sites being accessed, time of day and length of time users are online, etc. I tried a few but rthe results were less than easy to read. TIA for any suggestions.

[adrien]

hi

which ones did you try?

regards

Adrien

[ekkas2]

I wrote one that parse the log files & enter traffic data into a database. It used to record history of sites, etc. but I removed that when we didn't really use it. No stats on DNS, etc. but if there is some interest I might put some more work into it.

Ekkas

[pmueller]

Thanks--I tried Log Analyzer and Saw Mill--the reports are very long and not easy to read, nothing I would be comfortable handing to management to review. If you have something I could play with, I would be glad to try it. Thanks.

[kmrussell]

Thanks--I tried Log Analyzer and Saw Mill--the reports are very long and not easy to read, nothing I would be comfortable handing to management to review. If you have something I could play with, I would be glad to try it. Thanks.

The two main ones that seem to do the best job of reporting on user's activities that we are evaluating are:

InternetAccessMonitor: http://www.internetaccessmonitor.com

and

ProxyInspector: http://www.advsoft.info

Both do a good job - and both ironically are right at around $200 for a 50-users type license - but we're leaning towards InternetAccessMonitor for a couple reasons: It's VERY strong on being able to drill-down to exact dates/times that a user-accessed a specific website. ProxyInspector can only get within 1-HOUR of when they accessed - and at that, it's very difficult to get it to do so (you have to really use trial/error or 'process of elimination' by plugging in dates, and see if the user's accessing a website shows up in your report. Also, it has a 'time spent' type feature - that gives you a rough guesstimate of how much time that user spent on a site - or on the Internet (browsing, etc) period.

It's TIME SPENT feature should not be relied on 100% though - as it obviously uses some sort of algorithm to determine the 'time' from the amount of data sent etc. This would have to all factor into your Internet speed (however 99.999% of all companies obviously have broadband - so it's probably FAIRLY close to the time spent). I just wouldn't use it as my SOLE proof against an employee - but would lean more towards a 'track record' showing how often they accessed it - and even more specifically what time (if not on lunch break, etc).

The only major weakness that I see in InternetAccessMonitor is it's barchart reporting though. I believe it does do 'small' little bars on it's reports, but to do a regular colored/etc (larger) barchart (to show a group of people how they compare against other employees, etc.), you have to create the barcharts individually - and they're not labeled with a TITLE ironically. This oversight makes me cringe a bit - but due to it's major strong points, we may have to overlook it for now.

ProxyInspector is however strong in the barchart reporting area - giving you the ability to include the nice (colored if desired) barcharts right in your main report.

There is one more program that I've found - but it seems to be so BROAD in scope - and mainly a reporting tool for someone looking to see who visited their WEBSITE: http://www.sawmill.net (which I now see that you actually tried this one already).

Good luck - and let me know what you think.

Kevin

[dazzur]

I can't afford to pay the €200 or USD$299 for the three log file analyzers that are listed in this forum. I'd like to be able to use one of the many free log file analyzers but they all use 'industry standard' formats - which it seems Wingate does not support.

I was wondering why this is the case and if there is likely to be any change in the log file format to adopt a standards-based approach?