We read allot of articles on how one can use MRTG as an Intrusion detection tool or to creating traffic graph for a particular network subnet or a single IP address on Linux platform with Apache web server. But we find very few that allow us to have graphs on Windows Dedicated server with IIS Web Server.

Here are some steps that can be used to create graphs on Windows Dedicated server with IIS as the web servers. And there is no need to take all the efforts to configure MRTG as we can simply have graphs with the use of logparser and the RRDtool from Tobias Oetiker and you can use the RRDtool perfectly without the rest of MRTG.

Logparser

Logparser is a great free tool from Microsoft. It is written by Gabriele Giuseppini a Software Design Engineer from the test department. The first version of logparser was an internal testing tool inside Microsoft. Version 2 was made publicly available at the website, version 2.1 was a part of the IIS resource tools kit and version 2.2 was made available in January 2005.

Here is a brief introduction how logparser works:

Logparser need three things, an input format, an output format and a sort of SQL query. The SQL query is a dialect of SQL.

There are few very interesting articles on Microsoft’s website, one written by the Author himself:
How to use Logparser
Another one from Scripting Guys:

The article from the scripting guys shows you how to use the logparser directly in a script with a com object.

You can download Logparser from the link below:
DOWNLOAD LOAGPARSER

The above download has portable help file in the application directory. This help file give you the parameters of all the properties of the logparser.
There is also an unofficial website specially for logparser:
www.logparser.com

About RRDtool.

What is the RRDtool:

The RRDtool or Round Robin Database tool is a tool that can store date in a database and create graphs with it. The really great thing about RDDTool is that the database does not growing. It will stay almost the same size as when it was created.

On the RRD website
RRDTool Website
there are some really good tutorials, and it is recommended to read them before you use the RRDtool.
From this website you can also download the RRDtool, the only problem is that you need to compile it but if you download it with the MRTGbundle from the link below, it has a completed version of the RRDtool in the packet. If you unpack the MRTGbundle, you can copy the RRDtool directory to your scripting directory or your application directory and start using it.
DOWNLOAD RDDTool Compiled Version

Create Database.

Before you can use the RRDtool you need to create the database.
The link below has all the information on how and why to create a database along with the parameters.
How to create a database
Parameters

You can also use a script to do that.


‘#start script.
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
strCMD = ".binrrdtool.exe create Eservicing.rrd"
strCMD = strCMD & " --start N "
strCMD = strCMD & " -s 300"
strCMD = strCMD & " DS:Hits:GAUGE:600:0:2000000"
strCMD = strCMD & " DS:Error400:GAUGE:600:0:2000000"
strCMD = strCMD & " DS:Error500:GAUGE:600:0:2000000"
strCMD = strCMD & " RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:1:288"
strCMD = strCMD & " RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:2:2016"
strCMD = strCMD & " RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:4:2232"
strCMD = strCMD & " RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:12:8760"

WshShell.Run strCMD
‘#end script.

Here is an explanation of every command in the script:

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
This line create a shell object you need to run the RRDtool .
In the next 10 lines I create the command line that I run in the last line.

strCMD = ".binrrdtool.exe create Eservicing.rrd"
this starts the RRDtool with the create function and give the name of the database.

strCMD = strCMD & " --start N "
–start set the start time of the database and N is the current time. The RRDtool works with Unixtime, this are the seconds from 1 January 1970.

strCMD = strCMD & " -s 300"
-s is the seconds between a database update.

strCMD = strCMD & " DS:Hits:GAUGE:600:0:2000000"
strCMD = strCMD & " DS:Error400:GAUGE:600:0:2000000"
strCMD = strCMD & " DS:Error500:GAUGE:600:0:2000000"
with this three lines I create three data sources. DS stands for data source, Hits is the name of the data source GAUGE is one of the four type’s of data sources, 600 are the seconds between the records if there is no input after 600 the value is NULL, 0 is the minimum value of the record and 200000 is the maximum value.

strCMD = strCMD & " RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:1:288"
strCMD = strCMD & " RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:2:2016"
strCMD = strCMD & " RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:4:2232"
strCMD = strCMD & " RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:12:8760"
this four lines create four Round Robin Archives. RRA stands for Round Robin Archive, AVERAGE is one of the four consolidation functions, 0.5 is the consolidation interval, 1 is the number of data sources that are consolidate in one record in the Round Robin Archive. If every 600 seconds a DS is created and the value is 4 instead of 1 every 2400 seconds there will be a record add to the archive, the last value is the number of records the archive contains.
The first line create a Round Robin Archive with a consolidation interval of 0.5. every data source gets a record in the archive and the archive is 288 records long.

WshShell.Run strCMD
And with this line the command is executed.

Update database.

With the next script we use logparser to evaluate the logfile from a IIS server. We can run this script every 5 minutes. To write the results in RRD database.

‘#start script
Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8
'-------------------------------------------------------------------------
LogDir = "serverd$logsyswwwsiteW3SVC1"
Set WSHShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objLogParser = CreateObject("MSUtil.LogQuery")
Set objDictIISlogslist = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")

Dim strDate
Dim count
Error400 = 0
Error500 = 0
‘————————————————————————-
Main
‘————————————————————————-
‘————————————————————————-
Sub Main
Call MakeStrDate
Call GetUniqueHits
Call GetStatus
Call UpdateRRD
End Sub
‘————————————————————————-
‘ —————————————————————————-
Sub MakeStrDate
strMonth = Month(Now)
If Len(strMonth) = 1 Then
strMonth = “0″ & CStr(strMonth)
End If
strDay = Day(Now)
If Len(strDay) = 1 Then
strDay = “0″ & CStr(strDay)
End If
strYear =Right(Year(Now),2)
strDate = strYear & strMonth & strDay
End Sub
‘ —————————————————————————-
‘————————————————————————-
Sub GetUniqueHits
Set objInputFormat = CreateObject(“MSUtil.LogQuery.IISW3CInputFormat”)
objInputFormat.recurse = -1
objInputFormat.iCheckPoint = strDate & “.lpc”
strQuery = “SELECT count(*) as UniqueHits FROM ‘” & _
LogDir & “ex” & strDate & “.log’”
Set objRecordSet = objLogParser.Execute(strQuery, objInputFormat)
Do While Not objRecordSet.AtEnd
Set objRecord = objRecordSet.GetRecord
count = objRecord.GetValue(“UniqueHits”)
objRecordSet.MoveNext
Loop
End Sub
‘————————————————————————-
‘————————————————————————-
Sub GetStatus
Set objInputFormat = CreateObject(“MSUtil.LogQuery.IISW3CInputFormat”)
objInputFormat.recurse = -1
objInputFormat.iCheckPoint = strDate & “Error.lpc”
strQuery = “SELECT sc-status , COUNT(*) as Hits FROM ‘” & LogDir & “ex” & strDate & “.log’ WHERE sc-status > 399 GROUP BY sc-status ORDER BY Hits DESC”
Set objRecordSet = objLogParser.Execute(strQuery, objInputFormat)
Do While Not objRecordSet.AtEnd
Set objRecord = objRecordSet.GetRecord
If objRecord.GetValue(“sc-status”) > 399 And objRecord.GetValue(“sc-status”) < 500 Then
Error400 = Error400 + objRecord.GetValue(“Hits”)
End If
If objRecord.GetValue(“sc-status”) > 499 And objRecord.GetValue(“sc-status”) < 600 Then
Error500 = Error500 + objRecord.GetValue(“Hits”)
End If
objRecordSet.MoveNext
Loop

End Sub
‘————————————————————————-
‘————————————————————————-
Sub UpdateRRD
strRun = “.binrrdtool update Eservicing.rrd N:” & count & “:” & Error400 & “:” & Error500
X = WshShell.Run(strRun,0,True)
End Sub
‘————————————————————————-
‘#end script

We will not explain this script line by line as it is a pretty simple script.

Creating a Graphic with the RRDtool.

With the next script I create a graphic with the RRDtool.

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

strCMD = “.binrrdtool graph .graphintranetNLweek.gif”
strCMD = strCMD & ” –start N-1w –end N”
strCMD = strCMD & ” –vertical-label ” & Chr(34) & “Hits ” & Chr(34)
strCMD = strCMD & ” –title INTRANET”
strCMD = strCMD & ” DEF:Xhits=.databaseintranetNL.rrd:Hits:AVERAGE”
strCMD = strCMD & ” DEF:Xerror400=.databaseintranetNL.rrd:Error400:AVERAGE”
strCMD = strCMD & ” DEF:Xerror500=.databaseintranetNL.rrd:Error500:AVERAGE”
strCMD = strCMD & ” LINE2:Xhits#FF0000:” & Chr(34) & “Hits” & Chr(34)
strCMD = strCMD & ” LINE2:Xerror400#00FF00:” & Chr(34) & “400 Errors” & Chr(34)
strCMD = strCMD & ” LINE2:Xerror500#0000FF:” & Chr(34) & “500 Errors” & Chr(34)

WshShell.Run strCMD

You will make a note of 2 important thing in this script:
1. The DEF line: this line defines the Data Sources you use.
2. The LINE2: This defines the line in the graphic.

MS SQL 2005 Server was released after 5 servers of it previous SQL version, MS SQL 2000, Hence it required allot to revisions to cope up with the current windows development environment. Therefore MS SQL 2005 SP2 had major changes in it, with too many performances and security fixes. Microsoft could not add few revisions due to its basic development structure however they had all the scope to introduce them in SQL 2008 release. And indeed, MS SQL 2008 has many installation as well as performance fixes being applied to it and allowing Windows Administrators to have full control on SQL activities. The biggest advantage of SQL 2008 over SQL 2005 is the ability to manage and maintain server performance. SQL 2008 does not require too much resource which is the best deal for today’s Shared Hosting environment. Also an upper hand to whose to do not want to invest too much on hardware of their dedicated servers just to run SQL server on it.

I have tried to gather the major improvement introduced by Microsoft on SQL 2008 from Internet which is an advantage over SQL 2005 however it all depends on what features are useful to you in the development of your ASP .NET applications. But switching to Microsoft SQL 2008 is definitely going to improve the performance even if you don’t use any of the below feature. And not to forget that with the release of SQL 2008, Microsoft will announce “End Of Life” for SQL 2000 version, which will mean that there won’t be any official support or update release for SQL 2000.

Major difference between SQL 2005 and SQL 2008.

* Easy Upgrades: Version upgrades are now very easy and effective with SQL 2008.
* Resource Restriction Governor: We set a restriction on a users or groups from consuming high resources. This is a very good feature that can be used on Windows shared server with SQL database to maintain the performance.
* Dates and Times settings: New data types such as: Date, Time, Date Time Offset has been introduced.
* Improved Full Text Search: Ability to backup Native Indexes and also thesaurus them as metadata.
* External Key Management: This unique can store Keys separately and not with the data.
* Improved SQL Server Analysis Service: It now has improved Stacks and computes block faster.
* Improved Installation: Microsoft has added an option where you can uninstall Disk images and service packs.
* Data Synchronizing: A Development of databases used in applications that frequently get disconnected.
* Transparent Data Encrypts: It has the ability to encrypt full SQL database with different encryption Methods.

* SQL Server Integration Service: SQL 2008 Server has improved multiprocessor support and faster lookups in compare to SQL 2005.
* Change Data Capture: Allows all changes to be captured and queried. (Enterprise). Also allows us to get detailed information on what changes has happened to which rows after a specific version.
* LINQ: A Development query language for accessing multiple type of data like XML and SQL at the same time.
* Hot Plug CPU: With this feature to an add CPUs on fly for your SQL server to use.
* Microsoft Office 2007 integration: One can use MS OFFICE as an SSRS template, like SSRS to WORD.
* Spatial Data types: Data types for storing Longitude, Latitude and GPS entry of a particular database.
* MERGE: A new TSQL command as a combination Update, Insert and Delete.
* Encrypted Backups: We can execute it at the time running backups to prevent tampering from external resource.
* Data Compression: This feature is different as it allows us to manage data compression at table level to enhance performance.
* Dynamic Development: Latest Visual Studio and ADO options along with ASP .Net 3.
* Reporting Server Performance: Unlike in SQL 2005 we can set threshold on Reporting server for memory management.
* Performance Studio: It is a Gallery that has collection of monitoring tools enhanced performance.
* Audits: A very power feature for monitoring the data access of your SQL database.
* Table Value Parameters: SQL 2008 database has ability to insert entire table into a stored procedure.
* Entity Database Services: (LOB) Line Of Business framework and (eSQL) Entity Query Language.

No doubt that Microsoft has improved all the features that has been used by hosting services. Even SQL Cluster in version 2008 has few major advantages since every one in today world wants to have their site up all the time with 100% uptime. I hope I get some time to write on “MS SQL 2008 Clustering..“

For steps on Linux refer the link below:

How to install PHPMyAdmin on Linux

How to install phpMyAdmin 2.11 on Windows Desktop and Server

Here are steps that will help you installed PHPMyAdmin on a Windows server.

REQUIREMENTS:

>> PHP 4.3/4.4/5.1
>> MySQL 4.0/4.1/5.0

DOWNLOAD:

This installation was tested on phpMyAdmin-2.11.1
You can select the file from PHPMyAdmin Downloads

CONFIGURATION:

Configuration that needs to be noted, the one below are the one we have chozen. They might be different on your server:

Installation path: C:\www\phpMyAdmin (If you have Apache on your server then place out side of webroot of Apache)
Apache webroot : C:\www\webroot
My-SQL path : C:\www\mysql\bin
Access phpMyAdmin as : http://192.168.1.52/phpMyAdmin/

INSTALLING PHPMyAdmin:

1. Unpack the downloaded file phpMyAdmin-2.11.1.zip under the directory C:\www
2. Rename directory C:\www\phpMyAdmin-2.11.1 to C:\www\phpMyAdmin
3. Make a copy of C:\www\phpMyAdmin\libraries\config.default.php
4. Open the default configuration file of PHPMyAdmin C:\www\phpMyAdmin\libraries\config.default.php and make following changes:

a. Find:

$cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] = '';

Put the full URL of PHPMyAdmin in the quotes, you can replace the IP address with the IP address of your server or your domain name:

$cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] = 'http://192.168.1.52/phpMyAdmin/';

b. PHPMyAdmin can also try to auto-detect the proper value for the above directive if it is left as it is [BLANK] and the below line is changed to ‘TRUE’:

$cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri_DisableWarning'] = FALSE;

c. Authentication Method:

– For single-user (root or trusted) environment:

– Method 1 would be to prompt client for MySQL user/password, this option will only work if your database is not accessed by other users:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'http';

– Method 2 is to store MySQL user/password under config.ini.php file.

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'root';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'root-password';

Please replace the user and password with the administrator user and password of your MySQL server.

d. Authentication Method — for multi-user (untrusted) environment, this will allow to give access to your developers or clients if it is a shared server in hosting environment.
This step is also required to for enabling phpMyAdmin’s relational features

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'http';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = '';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser'] = 'pma';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlpass'] = 'pmapass';

Save the password: pmapass

e. Now we will have tp create MySQL controluser user ‘pma@localhost’ with password ‘pmapass’, and with the proper permissions to the user:

C:\www\mysql\bin> mysql -u root -p
mysql> GRANT USAGE ON mysql.* TO 'pma'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'pmapass';
Note the SQL password

mysql> GRANT SELECT (Host, User, Select_priv, Insert_priv, Update_priv, Delete_priv, Create_priv, Drop_priv, Reload_priv, Shutdown_priv, Process_priv, File_priv, Grant_priv, References_priv, Index_priv, Alter_priv, Show_db_priv, Super_priv, Create_tmp_table_priv, Lock_tables_priv, Execute_priv, Repl_slave_priv, Repl_client_priv) ON mysql.user TO 'pma'@'localhost';
mysql> GRANT SELECT ON mysql.db TO 'pma'@'localhost';
mysql> GRANT SELECT ON mysql.host TO 'pma'@'localhost';
mysql> GRANT SELECT (Host, Db, User, Table_name, Table_priv, Column_priv) ON mysql.tables_priv TO 'pma'@'localhost';
mysql> quit

CONFIGURING APACHE 2.0

a. If you run Apache as the webserver then you will follow the steps below:

Open file C:\www\Apache2\conf\httpd.conf to edit it and uncomment line (remove the beginning character ‘#’)
I would suggest you to backup the http.conf file incase you have messed it up.

LoadModule alias_module modules/mod_alias.so

b. Make sure directive ‘DirectoryIndex’ contains ‘index.php’ http.conf

DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var index.php

c. Then add the following lines:


Alias /phpMyAdmin "C:/www/phpMyAdmin"



Options None
AllowOverride None
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 127.0.0.1


Do not forget to restart Apache once you have made the above changes and have saved the http.conf file.

CONFIGURING IIS6.0

a. Open IIS Webserver from START >> RUN: inetmgr
b. In IIS manager expand SERVER_NAME >> Web Sites and select Default WebSite.
c. In the Right pane right click in white soace and select New >> Virtual Directory.
d. In the Virtual Directory creation Wizard, click Next.
e. Give directory Alias (Name) as PHPMyadmin and click Next.
f. Click on Browse button and navigate to “C:\www\phpMyAdmin”
e. Select “Read”, “Run Script” & “Execute” and click Next.
g. Now Right click on the PHPMyAdmin Virtual directory and select permissions.
h. Give “Read & Execute” permissions to IUSR_ and inherit the permissions.
i. Right click on the PHPMyAdmin Virtual directory >> Properties >> Virtual Directory >> Configuration and map .php extention to PHP executable.

OPTIONAL CONFIGURATIONS:

Configuration for PHP v5:

These steps are only required if you want to use PHP5 for PHPMyAdmin, in PHP4 PHP extension php_mysql.dll is build in and extension php_mysqli is not supported.:

a. Edit file %SYSTEMROOT%\php.ini, under the ‘Dynamic Extensions’ Section:

Uncomment line:
;extension=php_mbstring.dll

If using MySQL v4.0 : Uncomment line
;extension=php_mysql.dll

If using MySQL v4.1 : Insert line
extension=php_mysqli.dll

Edit config.inc.php and update server extension line:
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension'] = 'mysqli';

Enable phpMyAdmin’s Relational Features:

Please make a note that these steps are required for “Authentication Method — for multi-user (untrusted) environment”

Edit phpMyAdmin’s configuration file C:\www\phpMyAdmin\config.inc.php:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb'] = 'phpmyadmin';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['bookmarktable'] = 'pma_bookmark';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['relation'] = 'pma_relation';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_info'] = 'pma_table_info';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_coords'] = 'pma_table_coords';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['pdf_pages'] = 'pma_pdf_pages';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_info'] = 'pma_column_info';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['history'] = 'pma_history';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['designer_coords'] = 'pma_designer_coords';

Now Run phpMyAdmin’s sql script file ‘create_tables.sql’:

C:\www\mysql\bin> mysql -u root -p
mysql> source C:\www\phpMyAdmin\scripts\create_tables.sql
mysql> quit

That is it, you should be done with PHPMyAdmin installation on Windows.

For Backup of MySQL database click on Export.

1) Make sure that entire database is selected for Export, and not just one table.
All the Tables under Database list should be added in Export List.

2) Now, follow the steps given
select “SQL” for output format
Check “Structure”
and “Add AUTO_INCREMENT” value
Check “Enclose table and field name with back quotes”
Check “DATA”
check use “hexadecimal for binary field”
Export type set to “INSERT”

3) Check “Save as file”, it is not necessary to change the file name.
Click “GO” to download the backup file.

Backup of your MySQL database is created !

Now, for Restoring backup of MySql database

1) Click on SQL tab, to start restoration of your backup file.

2) Un-Check “Show this query here again”.

3) Browse to your database backup file.

4) Click – “GO”

Backup is Restored !

Large MySQL Backups:

Error: MySQL has gone away

To restore large SQL backups there are 2 setting that you will need to take of:

1. Make sure that you PHP upload size is great than your MySQL backup file, this setting will be needed to be changed in php.ini file. Only those who has server administrator access would be able to make changes in PHP.INI file. Hence you will have to contact your Hosting provider if you are hosted on a Shared server. But if you have a Dedicated Server then this file is normally stored in C:\Windows\php.ini or you can esily get the path from phpinfo() page. The option that you need to change is upload_max_filesize. It is also suggested that you increase the following parameters as per the size of your MySQL backup file:

max_execution_time = 30     ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_input_time = 60    ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
memory_limit = 8M      ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (8MB)

2. You will need to increase the MySQL buffer size in MySQL configuration size, the file is my.cnf in Linux server and my.ini on Windows Server. The parameter that you need to change is:

read_buffer_size

By default it is set to 1MB, if the entry is not present then add it under [MYSQLD] section.

Please Make sure that you restart IIS webserver after making change to php.ini and restart MySQL after making changes in my.ini file.

If you looking backup MySQL using VBS or ASP script then refer the link below:

How to backup MySQL using VBS or ASP script.