Introduction

IIS 6.0 is the previous version of the Internet Information Services (IIS) offered by Microsoft. And, it is still very widely deployed. This special appendix teaches you to monitor log files from IIS 6.0 using Microsoft Log Parser. The Log Parser tool was born around 2000 as a utility to test the logging mechanisms of Microsoft s Internet Information Services (IIS). The first inception of the tool allowed users to retrieve and display all the fields from a single log file in any of the three text-logging formats supported by IIS.

As tests became more complicated, the need arose for more specialized tasks, including the possibility to filter log entries matching specific criteria and to sort the resulting entries according to values of specific fields. To provide a succinct and wellestablished way to specify these operations from a command-line shell, the tool underwent its first major makeover and began to support a very limited dialect of the SQL language. Log Parser 1.0 was born, and its use began spreading among internal Microsoft users and product support analysts.

After some time, the SQL language dialect processor was completely redesigned, enriched with functions, aggregate functions, and the GROUP BY clause, and with improved performance characteristics; at the same time, the tool underwent a second major architectural makeover, which separated the log file parsers and the console output formatter from the core SQL engine, making it possible for generic input formats and output formats to easily plug in with the architecture. Just...