There''s been some discussion before about how to improve logging and auditing (here''s one url=http://www.jivesoftware.org/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=14432thread[/url] in particular) but I don''t believe anyone is actively working on anything.

Hope that helps,

Ryan

I''ve been doing a little work on this.

I''ve put together a small Perl script that parses the jive.audit log files and creates dated log files from them (default is the current date but an offset in days can be passed in). This could be run as a cron job (or scheduled task) early in the morning, specifying an offset of -1 to grab all the previous day''s traffic.  All log files are parsed as there is no accounting for preferred rollover file sizes and also depending on heavy usage, a single day''s traffic could span several files.  The original log files remain intact.

I have submitted a feature request to have the facility to specify log rollover by time rather than by file size and Matt has kindly filed it as JM-298, so the Perl script would eventually become redundant.

I then have a program in C#  - .NET but I''m sure it can be ported to Mono,  (I''m all over the place with languages , except Java ) that parses the dated log file, although it can quite happily parse the original audit file as the only difference being the dated log files only contain message packets for a specific date. I''ve not tested very large files.

Messages are presented in the form of a list, giving date, sender, message type (chat or message), subject and first 20 words of message body.  Double clicking will provide the whole message.  This list can then be filtered by senders and message type, i.e. being able to focus in on a chat, or just view all messages sent by a particular user.

As message packets are logged twice, ie. from the sender''s stream and also to the recipient''s stream, these are ignored based on sender, subject (if one exists), and message body.  Recipient is ignored to allow for broadcast messages.

I could post the code if anyone is interested, but bear in mind that I tend to take extreme programming to extremes and just omit design completely . Currently there are no configuration options so lots of stuff is hard coded, but I could fix that before posting.  Also none this is internationalised in terms of date/time formats, but again, date formatting could be set as an option.

Things to do:

Stuff this all into a database to allow for easy searching, and add a liberal sprinkling of nice icons.

Cheers,

Jason.

Hi,

I''ve attached a png image of the log viewer itself to whet your appetites.  It shows the main points of the application.  Appearance is a little bland at the moment.  No screen shot for the Perl script - no output on stdout (hopefully none on stderr either!).

The context menu - Focus this type lets you easily focus in on a chat or a series of messages between two users, without having to set the filter via the filter window.  Focus all types selects all types of message between the two users.  The last one is handy here as lots of users still haven''t got to grips with the difference between chat and message.  The Filter window allows you to select from all available users (that are listed in the log file) and view various types of message between them.

For the list of users, the application strips off the domain section of the JID and assumes that if the first portion has a . in it then it is Firstname.Surname and uses proper case on the username (only for display - the original message is stored intact).

Currently, the application only reads the dated log file, however, I will get around to enabling this to be entered into a database.

I''ll do a little work on putting some of the hard coded settings in the log viewer into some sort of config file to make things easier.  Hopefully being able to post the code in the next few days.

Sorry, no smilies in the message window , not yet at least.  I''m using a RichText control and displaying images is a little involved if you want to avoid using the clipboard.

I have also attached the Perl script that splits the audit logs into dated files.  This should work on both Windows and Linux, the path separator really being the only difference.

The Perl script can take 4 options:

-o specify an offset in days previous to the current day.  I.e -o "-1" for yesterday

Default is 0 i.e. today.  I suppose that means you can supply and offset for a future date, but that won''t get you anywhere

-O output location for the dated log file

Default is ./logs (I think this works on Windows regardless of the / separator)

-l location of the jive audit files

Default is /opt/jive_messenger/logs (no idea where the default is on Windows)

-f a template for the audit file

Default is jive.audit-*.log.  The script then ''globs'' all matching files.

The output log file is named yyyy-mm-dd.log and is in the same format as the original, just containing the message packets from the specified date.

The current BIG assumption in the Perl script is that the message packet dates are  in the form: Fri Jun 02 09:35:00 BST 2005, with BST and GMT being used depending on daylight savings being in effect.  I''m sure someone can point out the error of my ways here.

Actually, the Log viewer makes this assumption as well (as that is the format our logs take).

Hope this helps a few people.

Cheers,

Jason.

Message was edited by:

        jasonmcclean

Any feedback?

I''ve added support for emoticons and you can easily recreate psuedo chats from either chats or related messages.

I''ll update the previous post with new code if anyone interested.  If not, nevermind, it''s doing what I need

Jason.

Jason,

It''s starting to look very cool! Would you be interested in doing binary releases so that people can more easily use the software?

Regards,

Matt

Just wanted to thank you all for your efforts in doing this work... especially the spiffy log reader!

I''m guessing that there is a problem with the XML, so the XML classes are not happy.  Are you accessing the raw log file or using the Perl script to extract specific dates from the raw log file, then accessing the file that the Perl script creates?

If it is the raw log file, then maybe the bit of code I shoved in to add the missing </jive> tag isn''t working. I''ll have a play about tomorrow and get back to you.  Unfortunately no time at the moment.

Jason.