IIS Log Preparation Utility
Description
Simple Visual Basic utility to aid in the preparation of IIS logfiles, which modifying the log files just enough to
allow them to be easily imported into any major database or spreadsheet package in order to be examined or analysed.
In theory it will also perform equally well on any log file format which adheres to the W3C extended format but since
I only have IIS machines to hand I cannot really test this.
This program was written to tidy up my IIS log files - when you are creating a new log file every day tidying them
up prior to importing them is not such a problem but when you find yourself limited to a full month worth of
requests per log file, translating to a minimum average of thirty headers. Manually preparing a single file becomes
a chore as it is high repetitive and needs to be checked and re-checked to make sure every header and blank line
have been removed. Obviously this made the process a perfect candidate for automation.
The utility simply runs through the file and strips out everything apart from the first header line (so you know what
each field represents) and the individual requests - anything else is removed from the output. This means that those
outputs are perfect for importing as they have one header line with the field names followed by just pure data, also
this format is equally usefully to quickly browse in a simple text editor as it does not contain the distracting
breaks a normal multi-day IIS log file would.
Requirements
- Visual Basic 6 (IDE or Runtime)
- Website log files in W3C extended log format
Single Compressed Download
Installation & Setup
-
Unpack the zip file into a single directory.
User Guide
Simply run the program, either through the compiled application provided or as VB source code through the Visual
Basic IDE. Browse to the location where your log files are stored, once you are ready from the "File"
menu choose "Run" or press CTRL+R. Once completed the selected IIS website log files will be processed
and written out in a cleaned-up form to text (TXT) files whose names correspond to the source logfiles.