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Sawmill Newsletter

February 28, 2011



Welcome to the Sawmill Newsletter!

 You're receiving this newsletter because during the downloading or purchase of Sawmill, you checked the box to join our mailing list. If you wish to be removed from this list, please send an email, with the subject line of "UNSUBSCRIBE" to newsletter@sawmill.net (please include the entire message, as the identifying information is at the bottom).


News

Sawmill 8.1.8 shipped on January 17, 2011. This is a bug-fix release—it fixes a few bugs, and adds a few small features. This release is free to existing Sawmill 8 users. This release is recommended for anyone experiencing the issues described in the version history. You can download Sawmill 8.1.8 from http://sawmill.net/download.html .

Sawmill 7 users can upgrade to Sawmill 8 for half of the license price; or if you have Premium Support, the upgrade is free. Major features of Sawmill 8 include support for Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases, real-time reporting, a completely redesigned web interface, better multi-processor and multi-core support, and role-based authentication control.

This issue of the Sawmill Newsletter describes installation of Sawmill as a CGI program under Microsoft Internet Information Server 7 (IIS 7), for instance under Windows 2008 Server.


Get The Most Out Of Sawmill With Professional Services

Looking to get more out of your statistics from Sawmill? Running short on time, but need the information now to make critical business decisions? Our Professional Service Experts are available for just this situation and many others. We will assist in the initial installation of Sawmill using best practices; work with you to integrate and configure Sawmill to generate reports in the shortest possible time. We will tailor Sawmill to your environment, create a customized solution, be sensitive to your requirements and stay focused on what your business needs are. We will show you areas of Sawmill you may not even be aware of, demonstrating these methods will provide you with many streamlined methods to get you the information more quickly. Often you'll find that Sawmill's deep analysis can even provide you with information you've been after but never knew how to reach, or possibly never realized was readily available in reports. Sawmill is an extremely powerful tool for your business, and most users only exercise a fraction of this power. That's where our experts really can make the difference. Our Sawmill experts have many years of experience with Sawmill and with a large cross section of devices and business sectors. Our promise is to very quickly come up with a cost effective solution that fits your business, and greatly expand your ROI with only a few hours of fee based Sawmill Professional Services. For more information, a quote, or to speak directly with a Professional services expert contact consulting@flowerfire.com.


Tips & Techniques: Installing Sawmill as a CGI Service on Windows 2008 Server (IIS 7)

Sawmill typically runs under its own web server, but there are cases where it may be desirable to install it under an existing web server, like IIS or Apache. Installation of Sawmill under most web servers is straightforward—you just put the Sawmill binary and LogAnalysisInfo folder in the CGI folder, change the permissions of both to allow them to be executed, read, and written by the CGI user, and you're ready to start accessing Sawmill through the web interface. But IIS is not so simple: it has a number of security features which must be configured for Sawmill to function. This newsletter provides step-by-step instructions for installing Sawmill as a CGI program under IIS 7.

Start with IIS 7.0 installed and running. You must have administrative privileges on the Windows 2008 server to perform the steps below.

1. Download and install the latest Sawmill 8 release on Windows

Download the latest Sawmill 8 production release, and install by double clicking the Sawmill package. You'll be directed through the processes of installing Sawmill using the Windows installer. Sawmill, by default, will install in web server mode & will setup a Windows service that runs Sawmill as a Service. Installing in web server mode is necessary to unpack the Sawmill executable & supporting files. As part of this process UN-CHECK the Sawmill 8 Windows Service When doing the install, and click Install. From there you will get the option to Show Sawmill 8 now (by a web browser URL). Un-check this box, and click FINISH. Once the installer completes, you’ll have the core pieces to move into place within the IIS 7.0 framework to use Sawmill as a CGI process.

UN-CHECK the Sawmill 8 Windows Service check box, and click Install:



Un-check the Show Sawmill 8 now (by a web browser URL) box, and click FINISH.



2. Move Sawmill 8 into the IIS 7 directory

From Windows Explorer, create the folder: C:\inetpub\cgi-bin\



Right click the C:\inetpub\cgi-bin directory, select properties from the context menu and then select the Security tab.



For each Group and user, change permissions to allow modify, read, write and execute permissions (Full control.)



Next, move the directory containing the Sawmill supporting files, the Sawmill binary into place.

Move

C:\Program Files\Sawmill 8\LogAnalysisInfo and

C:\Program Files\Sawmill 8\Sawmill.exe

C:\Program Files\Sawmill 8\libeay32.dll

C:\Program Files\Sawmill 8\ssleay32.dll

To:

C:\inetpub\cgi-bin\




Next, Highlight the LogAnalysisInfo folder, right click and select properties from the contextual menu. Click on the Security tab and change permissions to modify, read, and write permissions for all users and groups.

3. Integrate Sawmill into the IIS 7.0 framework

Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager by clicking on the Windows Start Menu, Administrative Tools, Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager. Expand the Server’s IIS configuration by clicking on the + next to the name of your server, and then expand the Web Sites folder from within the IIS control panel. Highlight the website you want to add a cgi-bin directory to.



Right click for the contextual menu, and select Add Virtual Directory.



The Virtual Directory Creation Wizard window will appear. The wizard is used to add the cgi-bin directory to the website. In the wizard, create a virtual directory Alias cgi-bin and the physical path to the cgi-bin folder on the server, in this case I’ll point to the web server root directory, C:\inetpub\cgi-bin.



Once you create the virtual directory path to the cgi-bin folder in your web server root directory using the wizard, you’ll need to edit the permissions by right clicking the cgi-bin directory. The correct permissions will be read, execute, and write (Allow full control.) There maybe be a security warning when you select write permissions, and execute permissions, and you’ve completed adding the virtual directory.

Now we will need to add Sawmill.exe as a web service in the IIS control panel. To do this you’ll click on the Server Names (SAGE in this example) in the left pane of the IIS server menu. In the right pane double click ISAPI and CGI Restrictions.



Next, click on the Add button, and browse to the location of the C:\inetpub\cgi-bin\Sawmill.exe, (you will need to change the file types pull down to display all files) and open Sawmill.exe, and click OK to add the file. On the same window you’ll see an option for Allow extension path to execute, check the box next to the option to enable the web service extension, and click on OK.

After you click Add, you will see the dialog box below.



When you click the browse (...) icon you'll get the dialog box below. You will need to set the file times as shown below to get Sawmill.exe to show.



Once you Select the Sawmill.exe executable, optionally add a description of the web service you are adding, and check the box next to Allow extension path to execute.



You’ve now added Sawmill.exe as a web services extension for your site, and you’ll see the web service in the list of ISAPI and CGI Restrictions with a status of Allowed.




Now go back to Server page, and click on the server name, then double click on Handler Mappings.



Check if the CGI-exe handler is enabled, if not enabled, select this setting by Edit Feature Permissions for the handler.



In the Edit Feature Permissions dialog box check Execute and click OK.



Now the Handler Mappings will show the CGI-exe, enabled.



Now for the moment of truth. You now should be able to access your CGI install directly via http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/Sawmill.exe. If you see a "page not found error" that's bad news, and it’s likely that the cgi-bin directory is not correctly linked to the site URL. If you see something about not having permissions or internal server error (error 500) then this is good news because the browser is resolving your install, however, something still needs to be fixed in terms of permissions (or DLLs) to get things running. See the troubleshooting section below. If everything goes as expected you will see the Welcome to Sawmill setup screen. From here you’ll be guided through a quick set up of Sawmill, including creating an administrative user. Once setup is complete you can begin analyzing your logs by clicking on the Start here link.

Troubleshooting

There are instances where Windows 2008 and IIS 6.0 have increased security measures enabled. If this is the case you will get a 403-permission denied error when trying to access your Sawmill CGI install. If this occurs follow the information in the Microsoft Knowledge base article below.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/904056

If you continue to get 500 errors, make sure you've copied the two DLLs from the Sawmill installation to the cgi-bin folder. The Sawmill.exe binary may not be able to run without those two DLLs in its folder.


Professional Services

This newsletter describes installation and configuration of Sawmill as CGI in an IIS 7 environment. If you need assistance with implementing or customizing a Sawmill CGI installation, or with any other Sawmill tasks, our Sawmill Experts can help. Contact sales@sawmill.net for more information.



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