Now that LogMeister and EventMeister version 5 are available for download from our site it’s time to take a look at some of the new features we’ve added.

Syslog Server / Syslog Forwarding

This is available in LogMeister only and turns LogMeister into both a syslog server (receiver) and forwarder. Remember that since LogMeister can read not only Windows event logs and syslog, but also text logs, xml logs and rss, it can forward just about anything as a syslog message. See the previous blog post for more detail on the syslog server and forwarding features of LogMeister.

ODBC Exports and Multiple Reports

You can now set up any number of reports for each feed. Reports can be set to trigger automatically by schedule or when a certain number if entries is reached, but you can also run a report manually any time you wish. Crucially you’re no longer limited to file based reports only; you can also create a report to export data to a remote database via ODBC.

All you’ve got to do is create a fully-specified DSN via the Windows 32-bit ODBC control panel, then use that in your report definition. Since there’s no such thing as a universal SQL language, we’ve targeted the two most common flavors of database in the Windows world for this first release: MS SQL Server and MySQL. If you need support for a different DB, just let us know and we’ll try to add it in a future release.

Event Lists and Presets for Easier Notification / Filter Rules

Rules for filters and notifications can now make use of the new “ID matches” operator to match or exclude a list of Windows event IDs. To make construction of those lists easier, both LogMeister and EventMeister provide you with the following dialog:

The dialog holds the most common event IDs of interest together with a brief description of what the event means, and if you need to add other (possibly 3rd-party events) to the list then you can do so easily.

Additionally, once you’ve built a rule you can save it as a named preset so it’s ready to be loaded into another notification or filter with just a couple of mouse clicks.

Easier Movement of the Data Folder / Different Accounts for the Front End & Service

Version 5 makes it much easier to change the location of the data folder. There’s no more registry editing required; just use the “Change Data Location…” command on the File menu to get this screen:

What’s more, if you put the data in a location that is not account-specific, you can now run the front-end application and the service under different accounts – something requested by a number of our customers.

Other Improvements

That covers changes that were most requested by our customers, but version 5 has lots of other, smaller tweaks, such as an improved interface for editing multiple feeds in one go, a readily viewable and exportable internal log, and better handling of characters such as the “umlaut” for German language systems.

Still to Come

There are still more changes coming in version 5. For example, we’ll be adding a multi-user browser-based viewing interface for both LogMeister and EventMeister. For LogMeister only, we’ll also be adding the ability to collect a wide range of other data, such as server load and performance, installed software inventories, patch status and so on. As part of this, we’ll be releasing an agent that that is installed directly on the computer being monitored; it’ll be completely optional, but it will enable LogMeister to gather some data that needs the “local” touch.

In addition, we’ll be implementing more of the requests we’ve received from you, our customers. If you want to add your own requests to the mix, please submit a ticket via our Help desk, or send an email to support@logmeister.com.