Numerous utility applications are available to make Windows NT easier to use and to perform various system-administration tasks. The following sections discuss several applications that make it easier to administer an NT Web site.
Monitoring the access log file is the key to determining who accessed what from a Web server. Several Web-server, log-analyzing applications are available for Windows NT. Most of these applications are either freeware or shareware applications. Listed next are a few Web-server, log-analyzing applications that run on Windows NT.
AccessWatch
http://netpresence.com/accesswatch/
getstats
http://www.eit.com/software/getstats/getstats.html
Intersé market focus
http://www.interse.com/marketfocus/
WebTrends
http://www.webtrends.com/
The remainder of this section is devoted to WebTrends. Although it is a commercial program, WebTrends is a very feature-rich application that can be used to obtain various statistics about a Web site.
As you will be shown shortly, WebTrends can be used to obtain a variety of access statistics for a Web site. The WebTrends application looks similar to Figure 24.1.
Figure 24.1: A Web Trends application.
WebTrends originally comes preconfigured to analyze a few Web-server access log files. A new log file can be analyzed by clicking the Add button. This will bring up a dialog box similar to the one shown in Figure 24.2.
Figure 24.2: Adding/editing WebTrends log files.
Using the dialog box in Figure 24.2, WebTrends can be configured to analyze a log file using a local filename, FTP, or HTTP. The last two options are particularly handy for analyzing the access log file of a remote Web server. By clicking the Schedule button in Figure 24.1, it is possible to configure WebTrends to analyze a log file at a preset time and generate a statistics report. A dialog box similar to the one in Figure 24.3 is displayed when the Schedule button is pressed.
Figure 24.3: The Scheduler can be used to analyze a log file at a certain preset time.
A log file can be scheduled to be analyzed by pressing the Add button in Figure 24.3. When the Add button is pressed, a dialog box similar to the one shown in Figure 24.4 is displayed to obtain various information.
Figure 24.4: Log files can be added to the WebTrends scheduler.
As shown in Figure 24.4, WebTrends can be configured to analyze a log file at a certain date and time and repeat the process a preset number of minutes, hours, or days later.
The access log file of a Web server can easily be a few dozen megabytes in size. This makes it hard to view a certain section of the log file using a text editor. WebTrends can be used to solve this problem. When the View Log button in Figure 24.1 is pressed, a dialog box similar to the one in Figure 24.5 is displayed. This dialog box can be used to specify the section of the log file you are interested in viewing.
Figure 24.5: WebTrends can be used to view a certain section of a Web-server access log file.
Sometimes, you might not be interested in certain Web-server accesses. For example, you might want to exclude local accesses when WebTrends generates a statistics report. This can be done by clicking Filters in the dialog box shown in Figure 24.5 and clicking the Add button. A dialog box then asks you if you would like to include or exclude various records. For example, in order to exclude yourself, click the Exclude button, and a dialog box similar to the one in Figure 24.6 is displayed to gather various information.
Figure 24.6: Filters can be added to reports generated by WebTrends.
As shown in Figure 24.6, your IP address can be typed in the space provided for User Address in order to exclude yourself from the report generated by WebTrends. After clicking on Done in the dialog box shown in Figure 24.6, and Start in the dialog box in Figure 24.5, the section of the log file you selected is displayed as shown in Figure 24.7.
Figure 24.7: WebTrends can be used to view the contents of a log file.
WebTrends also can be used to generate a comprehensive statistics report of a Web-server access log file by clicking on the Report button in Figure 24.1, and using two dialog boxes similar to those shown in Figures 24.5 and 24.6. By selecting a predefined template or creating a new template using Figure 24.8, the statistics report generated by WebTrends can be cus-tomized.
Figure 24.8: Reports generated by WebTrends can be customized using templates.
Refer to Figures 24.9 through 24.15 for examples of various statistics graphs generated by WebTrends.
Figure 24.9: User profile by regions.
Figure 24.10: User breakdown by organizations.
Figure 24.11: User breakdown by countries.
Figure 24.12: Activity by day of the week.
Figure 24.13: Activity by hour.
Figure 24.14: Domestic breakdown by states.
Figure 24.15: Domestic breakdown by cities.
Virtually all operating systems are plagued with the problem of
disk fragmentation. Disk fragmentation occurs when files are added
and deleted from a hard drive over a certain period of time. Although
it takes a while for a disk to be fragmented, it can seriously
affect the performance of applications that frequently access
the hard drive. At the time of this writing, only one disk defragmenting
program, Diskeeper by Executive Software, is capable of defragmenting
NTFS (NT File System) volumes. Before purchasing Diskeeper, you
might want to find out if your hard drives are fragmented using
a fragmentation-analysis utility that's distributed free of charge.
URL |
A disk-fragmentation analysis utility can be downloaded from the Sunbelt Software Distribution Inc. Web site: http://www.ntsoftdist.com/ntsoftdist/ |
The disk-fragmentation analysis utility looks similar to Figure 24.16. By selecting Select Disk from the Analysis menu, a disk volume can be selected to analyze using a dialog box similar to the one shown in Figure 24.17. Note that there are two versions of disk-fragmentation analysis utilities. The first version analyzes only NTFS volumes and the other analyzes only FAT volumes. Depending on the kinds of partitions you have, you might want to download one or both utilities.
Figure 24.16: The disk-fragmentation analysis utility.
After the disk selected in Figure 24.17 is analyzed, a report similar to the one in Figure 24.18 will be displayed. Select Analysis|Reading for more information about interpreting results as shown in Figure 24.18. Generally, if Average fragments per file is greater than 1.3, you will be able to increase the performance of your system by defragmenting the volume that was analyzed.
Figure 24.17: Selecting a volume to check for disk fragmentation.
Figure 24.18: A disk-fragmentation analysis report.
Diskeeper can be used to defragment a fragmented hard drive. The Diskeeper application is shown in Figure 24.19. A remote NT computer can be defragmented using the Network menu option shown in Figure 24.19. The Defragment menu option can be used to defragment disk partitions by selecting drives as shown in Figure 24.20.
Figure 24.19: The Diskeeper disk-defragmentating utility.
Figure 24.20: Selecting a partition to be deframented by Diskeeper.
Certain files, such as Windows NT page files, should not be defragmented. Such files can be excluded using the Select Files and Drives to Exclude dialog box shown in Figure 24.21.
Figure 24.21: Various files and drives can be excluded to be deframented by Diskeeper.
Diskeeper can be configured to defragment drives when the system is idle as well as at a certain preset time. The dialog box shown in Figure 24.22 can be used to configure Diskeeper to defragment a drive when the system is not expected to be heavily used.
Figure 24.22: Diskeeper can be configured to defragment drives at a preset time.
Note |
If you are using Windows NT 3.51, you need to uninstall Diskeeper each time a service pack is applied to your system. This is because Diskeeper replaces several core NT system files. After applying a service pack, you need to download a new version of Diskeeper specially designed for the service pack if you are using NT 3.51. If you install Diskeeper and later upgrade to NT 4.0, it is recommended that you uninstall Diskeeper before upgrading to NT 4.0. This inconvenience has been taken care of in Windows NT 4.0. NT 4.0 has built-in hooks for disk-defragmenting utilities such as Diskeeper. |
Windows NT service packs are freely made available by Microsoft
to fix various bugs in released versions of Windows NT. Your NT
system should be updated with new service packs when they are
available at Microsoft's FTP site.
URL |
Windows NT service packs can be downloaded from the following FTP site: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/fixes/ |
Note that Windows NT service packs are cumulative. For example,
if the latest service pack available is service pack 4, you do
not need to apply service packs 1 through 4. Downloading and applying
service pack 4 is sufficient.
Tip |
Apply new Windows NT service packs if a certain problem you are having is addressed by the service pack or a problem you might potentially have is addressed by it. Although service packs are very safe, they can cause problems in certain rare cases. It is a good idea to monitor Windows NT mail lists and newsgroups for a day or two for any potential problems before applying a new service pack. |
When installing service packs, be sure to use the -d option when decompressing the service-pack distribution file. This ensures that any directory structures within the archive are preserved when the service-pack distribution file is decompressed.
A few utilities that can make Windows NT easier to use are listed next. These utilities make it easy to launch and manage Windows NT programs.
Although the Start button in Windows NT 4.0 makes it easier to launch various applications, virtually all applications are over three mouse clicks away. Sometimes, this makes it cumbersome to select various programs to launch. RipBar Pro solves this problem by providing a palette of application icons as shown in Figure 24.23.
Figure 24.23: RipBar Pro makes it easy to launch various programs.
By using the dialog box shown in Figure 24.24 and the Tuck Away option, more desktop space can be gained by hiding RipBar Pro just as you can hide the Windows NT Start bar.
Figure 24.24: RipBar Pro can be made to Auto Hide by using the Tuck Away option.
URL |
The latest version of RipBar Pro can be downloaded from the following URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com:80/homepages/SoftDesign/RipBAR.htm |
When several Windows applications are open at the same time, they can clutter the desktop and make it rather challenging to locate a program. This problem can be solved by using a virtual desktop utility similar to TopDesk. As shown in Figure 24.25, TopDesk can be used to create virtual desktop workspace screens. By using the mouse, it is possible to switch from one virtual desktop workspace screen to the other.
Figure 24.25: TopDesk can be used to create virtual desktop workspace screens.
TopDesk can be configured to have additional virtual windows and various hot keys by using the dialog box shown in Figure 24.26.
Figure 24.26: TopDesk configuration dialog box.
URL |
A copy of TopDesk can be downloaded from the following URL: http://www.winsite.com/win3/desktop/ |
It is highly recommended that you purchase a copy of the Windows NT resource kit if you use Windows NT extensively to perform various tasks. In addition to a number of useful utilities, it also includes additional documentation for Windows NT that is very helpful for administering and maintaining Windows NT systems. A few useful NT resource-kit applications are listed in the next few sections.
Process Viewer can be used to find out information about applications running on an NT system and kill applications that are no longer responding to user input. In addition to this, Process Viewer also can be used to change the priority of a process by using one of the priority buttons shown in Figure 24.27.
Figure 24.27: Process Viewer can be used to administer various applications running on an NT system.
Although it can't be used to control applications running on a server, Quick Slice is extremely useful in finding out how various applications use the CPU. For example, if the response time of an NT server is unusually slow, it is possible that an errant application is taking up too much CPU time. Such applications can be easily isolated using Quick Slice as shown in Figure 24.28.
The Command Scheduler application of the NT resource kit is a very handy program that can be used to schedule various applications to be run at a certain time.
Numerous utilities are available for Windows NT to make it easier to administer and manage an NT server. These utilities increase the performance of Windows NT and make it easier to use and manage various Windows programs.
The "Monitoring Web Server Accesses" section demonstrated how to calculate Web-server access statistics using a Web-server log file analyzing application called WebTrends. Afterwards, various aspects of disk fragmentation were discussed and you were shown how to defragment fragmented Windows NT disk partitions. It is important that you stay up-to-date with various Windows NT service packs. Service packs are updates to Windows NT that are released by Microsoft to address various undesirable "features" of Windows NT. Obtaining and installing Windows NT service packs were covered to help keep your NT server up-to-date with the latest Windows NT operating system files. The chapter ended with a discussion of several Windows NT utility applications that can be used to make it easier to use Windows NT.
The next chapter discusses various issues related to setting up and configuring the Windows NT FTP service. The Windows NT FTP service can be used to make various files available to Internet users. You will learn about various aspects of setting up and configuring the Windows NT FTP service as well as security issues associated with setting up an FTP server.