Monitor file over Windows share


You can create a data collector for a Windows share connection to collect data from shared network drives. To use this capability, you must ensure that you have access to the appropriate network drives.

Related topics

Where to find more information

To collect data by using a Windows share connection

  1. Navigate to Administration > Data Collectors > Add Data Collector Plus icon.jpg.
  2. In the Name box, provide a unique name to identify this data collector.
  3. From the Type list, select Monitor over Windows Share.
  4. Provide the following information, as appropriate:

     

    Field

    Description

    Target/Collection Host

    Target Host

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    Collection Host (Agent)

    Type or select the collection host depending on whether you want to use the Collection Station or the Collection Agent to perform data collection.

    The collection host is the computer on which the Collection Station or the Collection Agent is located.

    By default, the Collection Station is already selected. You can either retain the default selection or select the Collection Agent.

    Note: For this type of data collector, the target host and collection host are expected to have different values.

    Collector Inputs

    Server Name

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    Credentials

    (Optional) Select Apply security credential to provide user name and password credentials automatically and not having to enter it manually and then select the appropriate credential profile from the Available Credential list, that must have already configured under Administration > Credentials.

    OR

    Select Provide Credential to manually add credentials, and then manually enter the credentials in the following User Name, Password, Domain fields. You can create a credential profile using the manually entered details by clicking Add Credential small plus.jpg next to the Domain field.

    User Name

    Provide the user name for connecting with the server from which you want to retrieve the data.

    Note: This field is disabled if you applied a security profile earlier.

    Password

    Provide the password for connecting with the server from which you want to retrieve the data.

    Domain

    Provide the domain of the Windows user with which you want to connect to retrieve the data files.
    Click Add Credential small plus.jpg, provide a credential name, and click OK to create a new credential profile from the credentials that you provided in the user name, password, and domain fields. Once this profile is created, it is displayed under Administration > Credentials.

    Directory Path

    Provide the Windows share path in the format \\serverName\shareName\directoryLocationPath.

    To retrieve data files from subdirectories, provide the path up to the parent directory.

    Note: When creating a data collector template as a part of the collection profile, provide the path in the following format:

    \shareName\directoryLocationPath

    The host name is added as a prefix to the preceding path when the collection profile is applied to a host.

    Include sub-directories

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    Filename/Rollover Pattern

    Specify the file name only, or specify the file name with a rollover pattern to identify subsequent logs.

    You can use the following wild card characters:

    • Asterisk (*)—Can be used to substitute zero or more characters in the file name.
    • Question mark (?)—Can be used to substitute exactly one character in the file name.

    Specifying a rollover pattern can be useful to monitor rolling log files where the log files are saved with the same name but differentiated with some variable like the time stamp or a number.

    Note: Ensure that you specify a rollover pattern for identifying log files that follow the same data format (which means they will be indexed with the same data pattern).

    See examples

    Scenario 1

    Suppose you want to collect log files saved with succeeding numbers once they reach a certain size; for example:

    IAS0.log

    IAS1.log

    IAS2.log

    Rollover pattern: In this scenario, you can specify the rollover pattern as IAS?.log.

    Scenario 2

    Suppose you want to collect log files that roll over every hour and are saved with the same date but a different time stamp in the YYYY-MM-DD-HH format; for example:

    2013-10-01-11.log

    2013-10-01-12.log

    2013-10-01-13.log

    Rollover pattern: In this scenario, you can specify the rollover pattern as 2013-10-01-*.log.

    Time Zone

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    Data Pattern

    Pattern

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    Date Format

    When you select a data pattern, the matching date format is automatically updated. However, you can specifically find date formats matching the timestamp in your data file.

    Use one of the following methods to specify a date format:

    • Filter the relevant data formats: Click Auto-Detect to find automatically find a list of matching data patterns and date formats. If no matching data patterns are found, a list of matching date formats is displayed. You can click each of the date formats displayed on the left, to see a preview of the sample records.
    • Manually select a date format: Manually scan through the list available, and select one of the date formats available. Click Preview to see the sample records parsed.
      Alternatively, from the Pattern list, select Free Text with Timestamp and click Preview to find the relevant data formats that match the file.
    • Create a new date format: If you are not satisfied with the results arising out of the date formats available, you can create a new date format. To do this, select the Create new Date Format option and manually enter the date format depending on the timestamp that you want to capture. For example, if your data file contains the timestamp, "28 Apr 2014 10:58:28", then your date format must be dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss.

    Notes:

    • If you select both – a pattern and a date format, then the date format specified takes precedence over the date format from the pattern that you selected. So the timestamp is indexed as per the specified date format, and the rest of the data is indexed as per the pattern.
    • If you select only a date format, then the date format is used for indexing the timestamp, while the rest of the data is displayed in a raw format in your search results.

    Poll Interval (mins)

    Enter a number to specify the poll interval (in minutes) for the data collection (0 indicates that this is a one-time data collection).

    By default, this value is set to 1.

    Start/Stop Collection

    (Optional) Select this check box if you want to start the data collection immediately.

    Advanced Options

    File Encoding

    If your data file uses a character set encoding other than UTF-8 (default), then do one of the following:

    • Filter the relevant character set encodings that match the file.
      To do this, click Filter relevant charset encoding filter icon.jpgnext to this field.
    • Manually scan through the list available and select an appropriate option.
    • Allow IT Data Analytics to use a relevant character set encoding for your file by manually select the AUTO option.

    Ignore Data Matching Input

    (Optional) If you do not want to index certain lines in your data file, then you can ignore them by providing one of the following inputs:

    • Provide a line that consistently occurs in the event data that you want to ignore. This line will be used as the criterion to ignore data during indexing.
    • Provide a Java regular expression that will be used as the criterion for ignoring data matching the regular expression.

    Example: While using the following sample data, you can provide the following input to ignore particular lines.

    • To ignore the line containing the string, "WARN", you can specify WARN in this field.
    • To ignore lines containing the words both "WARN" and "INFO", you can specify a regular expression .*(WARN|INFO).* in this field.
    Sample data
    Sep 25, 2014 10:26:47 AM net.sf.ehcache.config.
    ConfigurationFactory parseConfiguration():134
    WARN: No configuration found. Configuring ehcache from
    ehcache-failsafe.xml  found in the classpath:

    Sep 25, 2014 10:26:53 AM com.bmc.ola.metadataserver.
    MetadataServerHibernateImpl bootstrap():550
    INFO: Executing Query to check init property: select *
    from CONFIGURATIONS where userName = 'admin' and
    propertyName ='init'

    Sep 30, 2014 07:03:06 PM org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.spi.
    SqlExceptionHelper logExceptions():144
    ERROR: An SQLException was provoked by the following
    failure: java.lang.InterruptedException

    Sep 30, 2014 04:39:27 PM com.bmc.ola.engine.query.
    ElasticSearchClient indexCleanupOperations():206
    INFO: IndexOptimizeTask: index: bw-2014-09-23-18-006
    optimized of type: data

    Best Effort Collection

    (Optional) If you clear this check box, only those lines that match the data pattern are indexed; all other data is ignored. To index the non-matching lines in your data file, keep this check box selected.

    Note: Non-matching lines in the data file are indexed on the basis of the Free Text without Timestamp data pattern.

    Example: The following lines provide sample data that you can index by using the Hadoop data pattern. In this scenario, if you select this check box, all lines are indexed. But if you clear the check box, only the first two lines are indexed.

    Sample data
    2014-08-08 15:15:43,777 INFO org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.server.
    datanode.DataNode.clienttrace: src: /10.20.35.35:35983, dest:
    /10.20.35.30:50010, bytes: 991612, op: HDFS_WRITE, cliID:

    2014-08-08 15:15:44,053 INFO org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.server.
    datanode.DataNode: Receiving block blk_-6260132620401037548_
    683435 src: /10.20.35.35:35983 dest: /10.20.35.30:50010

    2014-08-08 15:15:49,992 IDFSClient_-19587029, offset: 0,
    srvID: DS-731595843-10.20.35.30-50010-1344428145675,
    blockid: blk_-8867275036873170670_683436, duration: 5972783

    2014-08-08 15:15:50,992 IDFSClient_-19587029, offset: 0,
    srvID: DS-731595843-10.20.35.30-50010-1344428145675,
    blockid: blk_-8867275036873170670_683436, duration: 5972783
    Tags

    Inherit Host Level Tags From Target Host

    (Optional) Select this check box to inherit your tag selections associated with the target host that you selected earlier. This option is not applicable if you did not select a target host. Note that after selecting this check box, you can further manually select additional user groups. When you manually select additional user groups, both the inherited permissions as well as the manually assigned permissions are applied. To remove the inherited permissions, clear this check box.

    Select Tag name and corresponding value

    (Optional) Select a tag name and specify the corresponding value by which you want to categorize the data collected. Later while searching data, you can use these tags to narrow down your search results.

    Example: If your are collecting data from hosts located at Houston, you can select a tag name for "Location" and in the value specify "Houston". While searching the data, you can use the tag, Location="Houston" to filter data and see results associated with the Houston location.

    To be able to see tag names, you need to first add them by navigating to Administration > System Settings.

    To specify tag names and corresponding values, in the left box select a tag name and then type the corresponding tag value in the right box. While you type the value, you might see type-ahead suggestions based on values specified in the past. If you want to use one of the suggestions, click the suggestion. Click Add Plus icon.jpgto add the tag name and corresponding value to the list of added tags that follow. Click Remove Tag Delete icon.jpgto remove a tag.

    The tags saved while creating the data collector are displayed on the Search tab, under the Filters panel, and in the Tags section.

    Note: At a time, you can specify only one value for a tag name. To specify multiple values for the same tag name, each time you need to select the tag name, specify the corresponding value, and click Add.

    For more information about tags, see Understanding-fields-and-tags.

    Group Access

    Inherit Host Level Access Groups From Target Host

    (Optional) Select this check box to inherit your group access configurations associated with the target host that you selected earlier. This option is not applicable if you did not select a target host.

    Note: 
    After selecting this check box, you can further manually select additional user groups. When you manually select additional user groups, both the inherited permissions as well as the manually assigned permissions are applied. To remove the inherited permissions, clear this check box.

    Select All Groups

    (Optional) Select this option if you want to select all user groups. You can also manually select multiple user groups.

    Notes:

    • If you do not select any user groups and data access control is not enabled, then all users can access data retrieved by this data collector. You can restrict access permissions by selecting the relevant user groups that must be given access permissions. To enable data access control, navigate to Administration > System Settings.
    • If you do not select any user group and data access control is enabled, then only the creator of the data collector has access to data retrieved by this data collector.

    For more information, see Managing-user-groups.

  5. Click Create to save your changes.

 

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