MindTree Insight is a log analysis tool inspired by the Log4j Chainsaw. It is now an OpenSource project on SourceForge and is available at : http://sourceforge.net/projects/mindtreeinsight The download of the latest release is available at: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=212019&package_id=254922 This blog entry describes the need for such a tool and its background : http://regumindtrail.wordpress.com/2007/02/06/the-spot-the-log-entry-contest/

In brief it provides the following:

• Provide visual analysis of any pattern based log files
• Analyze logs from remote servers over (S)Ftp and Http.
• Supports tailing of local files and a plug-in for Eclipse
• Provides summary and detailed view of the log event
• Supports “no-mutating” analysis of the data set - such as search, sort.
• Supports “mutating” analysis of data set - via progressive filtering
• Helps to locate the “context” of an event i.e snap shot of log entries around a specific log entry.
• Optimized for performance and footprint size
  • Loads 1000 entries in around 375 ms
  • VM size between 45 to 60MB even after loading 110 000 entries

Too bad I don't have Windows. $> cat insight.sh echo "Not yet implemented" Nice!

Do agree with the statement. However, Insight is an open source project, and any contributions are most welcome.

I always wonder why we have soooooo many Open Source Java projects that claim "It has features that the $$$ team found missing in %%%%" and then tell everyone who mentions a feature missing in their project that contributions are welcome.. Why didn't you add the features as contributions to Chainsaw and save us all the headache of yet another java project... Just my two cents... Gary

Gary, Good point. Insight was developed as closed source initially in 2005. We did find some useful stuff in Chainsaw but then realized that we wanted Insight to be more than a log analyzer. FYI, we wanted to build JVM profiling into it as well which, well, never happened :)

Tracy, Good catch :) Its no excuse, but all of us here use Windows! We have added a ticket for this at : https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=1020095&aid=1931541&group_id=212019 In the meanwhile, you can maybe create a shell script out of the Windows .bat file contents provided below: ------------------------------------------------------------- @echo off rem --------------------------------------------------------------------------- rem Startup Script for Insight rem rem Environment Variable Prequisites rem rem JAVA_HOME Must point to a valid Java 2 JRE or JDK directory with version 1.4.2 or later rem rem INSIGHT_HOME Must point to the directory where this shell was extracted to rem --------------------------------------------------------------------------- set TMP=c:\tmp set JAVA_HOME=D:\WorkTools\j2sdk1.4.2_02 set INSIGHT_HOME=D:/projects/insight set INSIGHT_JAR=@@@INSIGHT_JAR@@@ :checkJavaHome if not "%JAVA_HOME%" == "" goto gotJavaHome echo The JAVA_HOME environment variable has not been defined goto end :checkInsightHome if not "%INSIGHT_HOME%" == "" goto gotInsightHome echo The INSIGHT_HOME environment variable has not been defined goto end :gotJavaHome if exist "%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java.exe" goto checkInsightHome echo The JAVA_HOME environment variable is not defined correctly echo This environment variable is needed to run this program. Please set it to JRE or JDK version 1.4.2 or later goto end :gotInsightHome if exist "%INSIGHT_HOME%\config\insight-preferences.xml" goto okHome echo The INSIGHT_HOME environment variable is not defined correctly echo This environment variable is needed to run this program. Please set it to the folder where Insight archive was extracted goto end :okHome set INSIGHT_CLASS_PATH=.;%INSIGHT_JAR%;%INSIGHT_HOME%/bin;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/looks-1.2.2.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/jakarta-oro-2.0.6.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/log4j-1.3alpha.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/log4j-chainsaw-1.3alpha-3.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/xercesImpl.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/xml-apis.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/xmlParserAPIs.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/commons-logging.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/j2ssh-core.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/commons-httpclient-2.0.2.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/commons-net-1.3.0.jar %JAVA_HOME%\bin\java -classpath %INSIGHT_CLASS_PATH% -DINSIGHT_HOME=%INSIGHT_HOME% com.mindtree.insight.gui.Insight :end ------------------------------------------------------------

Tracy, Good catch :) Its no excuse, but all of us here use Windows! We have added a ticket for this at : https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=1020095&aid=1931541&group_id=212019 In the meanwhile, you can maybe create a shell script out of the Windows .bat file contents provided below: ------------------------------------------------------------- @echo off rem --------------------------------------------------------------------------- rem Startup Script for Insight rem rem Environment Variable Prequisites rem rem JAVA_HOME Must point to a valid Java 2 JRE or JDK directory with version 1.4.2 or later rem rem INSIGHT_HOME Must point to the directory where this shell was extracted to rem --------------------------------------------------------------------------- set TMP=c:\tmp set JAVA_HOME=D:\WorkTools\j2sdk1.4.2_02 set INSIGHT_HOME=D:/projects/insight set INSIGHT_JAR=@@@INSIGHT_JAR@@@ :checkJavaHome if not "%JAVA_HOME%" == "" goto gotJavaHome echo The JAVA_HOME environment variable has not been defined goto end :checkInsightHome if not "%INSIGHT_HOME%" == "" goto gotInsightHome echo The INSIGHT_HOME environment variable has not been defined goto end :gotJavaHome if exist "%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java.exe" goto checkInsightHome echo The JAVA_HOME environment variable is not defined correctly echo This environment variable is needed to run this program. Please set it to JRE or JDK version 1.4.2 or later goto end :gotInsightHome if exist "%INSIGHT_HOME%\config\insight-preferences.xml" goto okHome echo The INSIGHT_HOME environment variable is not defined correctly echo This environment variable is needed to run this program. Please set it to the folder where Insight archive was extracted goto end :okHome set INSIGHT_CLASS_PATH=.;%INSIGHT_JAR%;%INSIGHT_HOME%/bin;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/looks-1.2.2.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/jakarta-oro-2.0.6.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/log4j-1.3alpha.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/log4j-chainsaw-1.3alpha-3.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/xercesImpl.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/xml-apis.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/xmlParserAPIs.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/commons-logging.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/j2ssh-core.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/commons-httpclient-2.0.2.jar;%INSIGHT_HOME%/lib/commons-net-1.3.0.jar %JAVA_HOME%\bin\java -classpath %INSIGHT_CLASS_PATH% -DINSIGHT_HOME=%INSIGHT_HOME% com.mindtree.insight.gui.Insight :end ------------------------------------------------------------

Tracy, The Shell issue is now fixed. You may want to download the latest release from: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=212019&package_id=254922&release_id=590780. Please use the Insight Users Mailing list (mindtreeinsight-users at lists dot sourceforge dot net) for any issues regarding Insight.

It looks good. But I had some question after using the product. 1. What is that additional feature this tool gives, which "grep" tool provides in unix or cygwin?. The above question is purely based on log analysis perspective. Some of the good features of the product include ftp, remote server etc.

Hi Tool gives a tabular view from a flat file system. i feel it should give much graphical view like google/analytics or some sort of basic reports to get value-added information. thanks ek

Rajesh, Isn't the world dominated by point-and-click users ? :) The ability to do progressive filtering, ability to locate the context of a log entry, searching on selective log entry fields, fileset definitions, remote browsing of 'nix servers, Eclipse plug-in, tailing of files e.t.c. are not possible using "grep" AFAIK.

Thankx for the reply Regunath. "grep" in unix is much more powerful specifically for nailing down a specific set of criteria that you pass as regex. Just to address some of your concerns: Tailing a file is perfectly possbile in unix (in windows use cygwin), remote logging using putty.exe or any such tool. I fully agree with your good intention to opensource this. I am giving the points purely from the common experience people had with production systems.

Always got a "Specified log pattern doesn't match data" error until I removed almost all formatting. I prefer an interface like BareTail.

http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.3/index.html

log4j 1.3 development has been abandoned and no future releases or development is anticipated. Users of log4j 1.3 are encouraged to migrate to log4j 1.2 or to monitor and contribute to the log4j 2.0 development effort. The companions for log4j 1.2 provide many of the features that were developed during the log4j 1.3 development effort.

That being said I dont quite finish to understand why you are using log4j-1.3alpha9-SNAPSHOT.jar as the log4j library for insight-ui.

Sebastian, It is a matter of need based migration. We used 1.3 Alpha when it was released. We primarily use the log4.jar for classes like Level, LoggingEvent e.t.c which havent changed much over time. In case we choose to use log4j 2.0, we might have to support additional severity/priority levels or make changes to support existing ones. We intend to migrate to log4j 2.0 when it becomes stable. Until then any version that supports these basic classes work for Insight.

Make it work first then start showing 1.5.1. When I save FTP configuration and exit app, i found nothing on app restart.

Uros, Another user raised this issue and we acknowledge it as a bug, introduced possibly as a regression effect of a change done recently. A bug has been logged at : http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1932949&group_id=212019&atid=1020092 Please await the next release where it will be fixed. We would request you all to raise such questions via the Insight users mailing list. You may also want to check the project tracker to see if it has been reported already.

A new release of Insight is available for download. This release fixes a number of issues raised in this thread. The release is available from the insight SourceForge.net download page at https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=212019&package_id=254922&release_id=590780. Please use the Insight Users Mailing list (mindtreeinsight-users at lists dot sourceforge dot net) for any issues regarding Insight.

Looks like the zip file "insight-ui-1.5.2-bin.zip" is broken. It does not seem to be a valid zip archive.

 

thanks,

Ayusman

I'm using OtrosLogViewer (http://code.google.com/p/otroslogviewer), Its not eclipse plugin but Swing application. Beside of this, it fits your needs,