Security event log forwarding on windows 2008 servers

Either strategy would enable all system messages to be stored in common files and be searched through by one single analytical tool.

There is a third strategy for consolidating Windows Events and Syslog messages, which is to convert them into a neutral format.

Whether Windows Events are sent to a Syslog server or to a third-party consolidating tool, the process of sending those messages is known as Event log forwarding. The Event log forwarder will operate on your own system. The log server and consolidator do not need to be resident on your premises. There are log servers that you can install on-site and there are others that are hosted Software as a Service system.

Many hosted systems offer the log collector, which is the Event log forwarder as part of the package. In these cases, the log collector still has to be installed on a Windows host on your site.

If you are consolidating files from Windows and Linux environments, you will also need to install a Syslog forwarder on one of your Linux machines.

SaaS log file management systems also provide a Linux-resident agent. The server is intended as a manager for all log messages whether they be Windows Events or Syslog. One of the things that you need to consider is whether the two services that you choose are compatible.

As both Windows Events and Syslog are universally-known standards , the likelihood of incompatibility is slim. However, it is still a good idea to check for compatibility, just in case. You eradicate the possibility of incompatibility if you get both an Event log forwarder and a log file server from the same provider. This is the strategy that we will follow in this guide.

Here we use two free utilities from SolarWinds. These are:. As you have probably already guessed from the names of these two tools, we will deal with the incompatibility between log file formats by converting Windows Event log messages into a Syslog format and then send them to a Syslog server.

The server is also capable of receiving Syslog messages from a Linux-based log message collector. It needs to be installed on each computer from which you want to collect Event log messages.

Click on the Download button to access the page. Fill in the contact details form on the download access page and then press the Proceed to Free Download button. You will be offered a free day free trial of the SolarWinds Log Analyzer. Whether you choose this offer or not, the next screen gives you a download link in the form of a button, labeled Download Now. Click on the button to get the download, which is a zipped folder.

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