Build a Windows Event Log Watcher Service Process to Export Event Log Entries as an RSS Feed

Introduction

The article presented below shows how to develop and set up a process to monitor for Windows Event Log (Application, System, and so forth) changes and export them as RSS feeds. Previously, I wrote an article on how to setup a process to monitor Event Log Changes via/with TCP Listener: Remote Event Log Montior/Watcher (Using TCP in .NET) or Use Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI): Win32_NTLogEvent and ManagementEventWatcher—to Build Windows Event Log Watcher Service Process to Export Event Log Entries as RSS feed (see other Siccolo articles about working with .NET, Windows Event Log, C#, and VB.NET).

There are some other ideas on how to “export” Event Log entries into RSS Feeds using ASP.NET; for example, Event Log RSS Feed Generator, or Event Log Monitoring with RSS. In this application, however, I’m using a Windows service to monitor the Windows Event Log for an events associated with a certain Event Source.

The idea is very similar to Remote Event Log Montior/Watcher (Using TCP in .NET); it has a Windows service on a machine monitoring for a certain Event Log entries and exporting them into RSS feed file. After that, any Feed Reader & RSS Aggregator supporting UNC file names can display those Event Log entries as RSS feeds. For example, I’m using intraVnews Feed Reader & RSS Aggregator for Outlook.

As you may know, .NET allows a developer to attach a “handler” to monitor for event log changes (Vb.NET):

         ...
Dim objLog As EventLog = New EventLog("Application")
AddHandler objLog.EntryWritten, _
   AddressOf ApplicationLog_OnEntryWritten
objLog.EnableRaisingEvents = True
         ...

Public Sub ApplicationLog_OnEntryWritten(ByVal [source] As Object, _
   ByVal e As EntryWrittenEventArgs)
   Try

      'handle event log change here

   Catch err As Exception
      'oops
   End Try
End Sub

or, in C#:

EventLog eLog = new EventLog("Application");
eLog.EntryWritten += new
   EntryWrittenEventHandler(EventLog_OnEntryWritten);
eLog.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
...
public void EventLog_OnEntryWritten(object source,
   EntryWrittenEventArgs e)
{
   try
   {
      //handle event log change here
   }
   catch (Exception ex)
   {
      //oops
   }
}

The only problem with this approach is that it does not allow you to monitor for event log changes on a remote machine. See Microsoft support article 815314.

1. Creating an Event Log Watcher Service

First, build a service component—Windows Service application—responsible for “keeping an eye on” event log on a machine. To create service application (in other words, an application that runs as a service):


  • Application that runs as a service, has few events (inherited from System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase).

  • OnStart(): Occurs when the service receives a Start command.

  • OnStop(): Occurs when the service receives a Stop command.

  • OnPause() and OnContinue(): Occurs when the service receives a Pause/Resume command.

For an Event Log Watcher service, you only need the OnStart() and OnStop() events. The onStart() procedure tells what actions should be taken when Event Log Watcher service starts running; load configuration settings (such as where to output RSS feeds, which Event Logs to monitor, if you need to filter certain event Sources and filter certain Event Types; for example, you may need only to “watch out” for Error event types from MS SQL Server service), and after that actually start working and monitor for Event Log changes!

For example, the config file may look like this:

Where configuration settings are loaded using the ConfigurationManager class.

To load/read settings from the configuration file, I’m using the following simple class LogWatcherSettings (showing just one method for just one configuration setting):

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Configuration;

namespace LogWatcher_RSS
{
   class LogWatcherSettings
   {
      ...
      ...
      public static string RssFeedsOutputFoler()
      {
         try
         {
            Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.
               OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.None);
            return ConfigurationManager.
               AppSettings["RssOutputFolder"].ToString();
         }
         catch
         {
                return "c:\\";    // by default, log file
         }
      }
      ...
      ...


   }
}

Now, back to the Log Watcher main class log_watch_rss:

public partial class log_watch_rss : ServiceBase
{
   bool m_ToDebug = false;
   string m_DebugFileName = "";

   string m_RSSFeedsFolder = "";    //where to put RSS feed files

   //keep a list of Event Logs to monitor
   //for example, Application and System
  ArrayList m_EventLogsToMonitor = new ArrayList();

    ...
    ...

   protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
   {
      //load settings:
      m_ToDebug = LogWatcherSettings.ToDebug();
      m_DebugFileName = LogWatcherSettings.DebugFile();
      m_RSSFeedsFolder = LogWatcherSettings.RssFeedsOutputFoler();

      //first - load list of event logs to monitor:
      string[] eventLogList =
         LogWatcherSettings.Filter_LogName().Split(',') ;
      if (m_ToDebug)
      {
         AddDebugMessage("LogWatcher_RSS monitors logs
            {" + LogWatcherSettings.Filter_LogName() + "}");
      }

      //for each Event Log - create instances of :
      for (int i = 0; i < eventLogList.Length; i++)
      {
         string logName = eventLogList[i];
         //one instance of EventLogRSS per log:
         EventLogRSS eventLog = new EventLogRSS(logName,
            m_ToDebug,
            m_DebugFileName,
            m_RSSFeedsFolder,
            LogWatcherSettings.Filter_LogSource(),
            LogWatcherSettings.Filter_LogEvent(),
            LogWatcherSettings.HowManyRecordsPull() );
         m_EventLogsToMonitor.Add(eventLog);
      }
   }

      ...
      ...

   protected override void OnStop()
   {
      foreach (EventLogRSS log in m_EventLogsToMonitor)
      {
         log.CloseLog();
      }
   }
}

So, as you can see, the Log Watcher service main class log_watch_rss is not doing a lot of work; it’s merely loading settings and creating instances of EventLogRSS. And, the EventLogRSS class is the one monitoring for Windows Event Log changes and “exporting” them to RSS Feed files.

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