Monday, 05 April 2010

First release: IIS Log Inspector module

I've been wondering for a long time now - why does IIS manager not have some kind of log inspector.. ANY kind, even one that would simply open up the log file in a text editor! They simply force us to use third party apps, or open up the log files manually.

Lucky for us, IIS 7 was improved in many ways, and one of the new features is support for custom pluggable modules for the IIS manager! So I decided to write a basic module that will allow me to get a quick peek at what's been going on with the website. I don't want to replace big specialised tools that generate graphs, and give us all kinds of statistics - instead, I decided to get something simple that will let me get a quick look at the latest activity.

As the default format of the log files in IIS7 is W3C - I decided to support just that (at least for the moment). If I need something more at any other point in time - I'll be able to extend it, and so will anyone else if they need it!

The last reason for this post - I'm announcing (as if it were a big thing for anyone else :P ) that other than a blog - this website will host project pages. Each project page will give the readers a quick overview of the project, screen shots, installations instructions and download links!

More info, including download links are available at the project page: IIS 7 Log Inspector Module

Upd: The link above has not been working in feed readers and on the home page for some time. Luckily - it's fixed now :)