aila2: Version 1 Full Package with Installation and Execution Scripts

Introduction:

The aila2 collection of tools comes with quite a few articles and downloads (see references [1-6]. But how can we benefit from this tool without having to read the full documentation? In short, how can we deploy the tool as simply as possible?

This is what this download page aims to answer.

Package content:

The package aila2-version1-full.zip contains the following files:

• aila2.exe [2]
• aila2.html [5]
• aila2.js [3][5]
• aila2-filter.exe
• aila2-runner.exe
• aila2-siteconfig.exe
• index.html [5]
• install.bat
• quickview.html [3]
• run.bat
• style.css [3][5]
• web.config
• web2.config
• web3.config
• web4.config

Installation:

The package contains 2 batch files to install and run the toolkit. Here are some variable that you should change to match your environment:

• aila2 web-directory: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\aila2
• IIS log files directory: c:\windows\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1

To install the tool on the server you need to unpack the attached zip file in a local folder.

Installing the web-UI:

Double click install.bat once you have modified the file to match your environment or as it is if it is applicable.

The web-application is now available. Check on your browser that the page can load properly:

http://localhost/aila2

If you encounter an error you will most likely need to use an alternative web.config file. This is because certain directives are necessary for the web-application to run and IIS does not accept the directive to be set twice (so inherited configuration cannot be overwriten locally).

The default web.config defines index.html as default document (so you can navigate to the aila2 folder without specifying the filename to be loaded) and files with a mime type .json as 'application/json'.

Web2.config, Web3.config and Web4.config each provide an alternative configuration (default document only, application/json only and nothing respectively).

Here is the content of the install.bat file:

@echo off

SET aila2="C:\inetpub\wwwroot\aila2"

echo Create the aila2 folder in the web-root...
IF NOT EXIST %aila2% mkdir %aila2%

echo Copy the web-ui files (if they do not exist yet)...
IF NOT EXIST %aila2%\style.css  copy style.css %aila2%
IF NOT EXIST %aila2%\quickview.html copy quickview.html %aila2%
IF NOT EXIST %aila2%\aila2.html copy aila2.html %aila2%
IF NOT EXIST %aila2%\aila2.js copy aila2.js %aila2%
IF NOT EXIST %aila2%\index.html copy index.html %aila2%
IF NOT EXIST %aila2%\web.config copy web2.config %aila2%\web.config

Generating IIS logs data:

Once the web-UI is configure you need to parse the IIS log files in order to generate the result files that will be used in the UI.

To do this you need to make sure that the run.bat file points to your web-application folder and IIS log directory. Once the pre-reqisites are satisfied you can launch run.bat from the unpacking directory.

Once the initial execution completed you can schedule the execution of run.bat daily to have your calendar view automatically updated. Beware in the task that the run.bat should be launch from the direcotry where the aila2 executables are located.

Note! If you have a lot of IIS log files you may want to clean up the folder to keep only the last 60 or 90 days, depending on how far back you want to go (but note that the default calendar view limits the display to 60 result files maximum).

Here is the content of run.bat:

@echo off

SET aila2=C:\inetpub\wwwroot\aila2


SET input=c:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles\W3SVC1

if EXIST %input% goto run

SET input=c:\windows\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1

:run

aila2-runner -i %input% -o %aila2%

echo Running siteconfig now...
aila2-siteconfig -i %aila2% > %aila2%\siteconfig.json

Conclusion:

With this download you can now setup a single server very quickly and review how much work is being done on your SMP server via its IIS log files.

References: