Logfile analysis

[iking]

The machine which is creating the logs is a Cisco Content Delivery Engine - a proprietary item over which we have little or no control, so I think that we have to accept the logs as they come. This item is a pain in the butt - every school in Scotland got one - supposedly to speed up Internet access and allow teachers to pre-book content for cacheing and to publish resources, however all we have noticed is a spectacular reduction in functionality as our connection now goes through the corporate IT connection.

[Ric_]

Sounds like an archaeic piece of kit. If you have to use it, stick a Linux box in front of it and use the Cisco thing as an upstream server.

In reality, the kit is probably just running an embedded version of Windows with MS Proxy server or ISA.

[RobC]

@Iking:

We've got our Cisco box in, but nothing's ever been done about it - no training, no software installed for it, not even a manual to look at, nothing.

Have you actually gone live with yours? And is it all bad, or are there some good points to it?

[Ric_]

@RobC: I'm sure that Cisco will have manuals on their web site - although it is the worst site in the world for finding stuff on! :?

[iking]

Well I managed to finish it eventually!

Andrew Virnuls kindly send me the source code for his program and I've adapted it to read logs from our SSDN content engine (extended squid format) you can search the log for a username, or by using a word list (text file) and it will output the results in Excel or Notepad. Ideal if you want to track the activities of a pupil, or just check for badness (and if you put the RM filter url in the wordlist you can check for attempted badness ) If anyone wants the program just drop me a note - probably more useful if you are in Scotland and have had a Content Engine installed as part of the SSDN

Ian

[Dos_Box]

@RobC: I'm sure that Cisco will have manuals on their web site - although it is the worst site in the world for finding stuff on! :?

Worse than Becta?