WinSyslog - Quick Tour

WinSyslog gathers all syslog messages send from different sources and stores them locally on the Windows system. To do this, you can configure a Syslog Server service. It can be set to listen to any valid port. UDP and TCP communication is supported.

It can be used to continuously check if everything is running well. It generates an information unit every specified time interval. That information unit can be forward to a different system. If it does not receive additional packets within the configured interval, it can doubt that the sender is either in trouble or already stopped running.

SNMP Trap Receiver allows you to receive SNMP messages. A rough description of a Trap is that it is somewhat like a Syslog message, just over another protocol (SNMP). A trap is generated when the device feels it should do so and it contains the information that the device feels should be transmitted.

A SETP server is used to ensure reliable receiving of events from other systems. SETP takes the original message from the sender and uses the exact settings that the sender was configured for. No alteration occurs at the SETP server side as no values need to be configured for the message format.

File logging is used to write text files of received messages. One file per day is written. New entries are appended to the end of the file. You can also put all data in one file or use circular logging to get files of a specific size.

Database logging allows persisting all incoming messages to a database. Once they are stored inside the database, different message viewers as well as custom applications can easily browse them.

It is used to configure the logging to the Windows NT / 2000 or XP event log. It is primarily included for legacy purposes.

Forward via Email

Email notifications can be sent to any standard Internet email address, which allows forwarding not only to typical email clients but also pager and cellular phones. The email subject line is fully customizable and can be set to include the original message. That way, pagers can receive full event information.

Net Send

This helps to send short alert messages to recipient machine via Windows net send facility.

Play Sound

This action allows you to play a sound file.

NT Event Messages can be forwarded using standard Syslog protocol. NT severity classes are mapped to the corresponding Syslog classes. Codes are fully supported.

NT event messages can be sent to a SETP server using SETP protocol.

WinSyslog has powerful and flexible rule engine which processes all events based on a configured set of actions. An unlimited number of rules and actions allow tailoring to the specific needs.

WinSyslog client comes with Send Syslog Test Message facility. This option enables to check if syslog messages being sent properly to the destination or not.

Set Status

Each Information unit has specific Properties e.g. EventID, Priority, Facility etc. These properties have some values. You can Create a new property and assign any valid desired value to it.

Set Property

With this, some properties of the incoming message can be modified. This is especially useful if an administrator would like to e.g. rename two equally named devices.

Send to Communications Port

It allows to send a string to an attached communications device, that is it sends a message through a Serial Port.

Post-Process Event

The post process action allows you to re-parse a message after it has been processed e.g. Tab Delimited format. Such re-parsing is useful if you either have a non-standard syslog format or if you would like to extract specific properties from the message.

Start Program

With this, an external program can be run. Any valid Windows executable can be run. This includes actual programs (EXE files) as well as scripts like batch files (.BAT) or VB scripts (.vbs). Start Program can, for example, be combined with the service monitor to restart failed services.

The WinSyslog client comes with multiple languages ready to go. Out of the box, English, French and German are supported. Other languages will be added shortly. Languages can be switched instantly. Language settings are user-specific; so multiple users on the same machine can use different languages.

Friendly and Customizable User Interface

New Skinning feature has been added to WinSyslog Client.

Other Miscellaneous Features

These include centralized logging, ease of use, powerful actions, interactive server, freeware mode, standards compatible, firewall support, WinSyslog web access, syslog hierarchy, store messages persistently, multiple instances, full logging, robustness, minimal resource usage, firewall support, NT service and ability to runs on large variety of Windows systems. To learn more about these, please see other miscellaneous features of WinSyslog.