This application is the real-time Web statistics for the GFI MailEssentials anti-spam software. It supports GFI ME versions 10 through 12. I started this application as the handy tool to keep an eye on how the anti-spam protection works, what emails it filters out and why, as far as what emails it lets go. Early versions of this application gave me the immediate return by letting me know, what I could fine tune in the settings of specific anti-spam modules. Also, watching the daily numbers was making sense of using the GFIME at all, not to me only, but to executives and to curious users!
Application shows the following data:
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General counters for incoming, outgoing and filtered mail. For this day, for any day, or for the period of time;
General counters, split by the local domains;
Counters for each of anti-virus modules;
Some details on working modules, e.g., which keywords caused emails being filtered;
Graphs for one or several days, hourly or daily;
All senders and recipients, sorted by address or by number of occurrences. E.g. the list of recipients, sorted by number, shows the most popular recipients.
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Also it allows doing some anti-spam analysis:
Searching for the sender and/or recipient address in the statistics. That is very useful when checking if some message did make through;
Listing all messages, filtered by specific anti-spam module. E.g. to check if some keyword generates false positives.
What is new
2006-04-16. Version 1.4.2.RC2
Added support for SQL Server 2005.
Added new graphics library.
Fixed last I18n problems.
2006-02-02. Version 1.4.2 RC1
Added support for the new Phishing Module
Requirements
The application requires the following environment:
Windows 2000/XP/2003 with IIS 5 or 6;
SQL Server 2000/2005 or MSDE 2000/SQL 2005 Express (preferably, on the separate server);
GFI MailEssentials 10, 11 or 12, configured to store Reporting data into SQL database.
ASP or ActiveX graphics-library
By default, this application uses ASPCanvas graphics library, written by Chris Read. That library uses ASP only, and does not require any additional DLL registered on the Web server.
In latest version you can use DynImage library by Chris Ashton, which implements some basic drawing functions and output in PNG format (opposing to GIF in ASPCanvas). That library is completed as separated ActiveX component, and you need to register in on your Web server prior to use the application (see the Installation section below on details).
NOTE: If you are limited to support of ASP only on you Web server (e.g. you do not have the administrative rights on it, or you are using hosted IIS service), then you better continue using ASPCanvas. Otherwise, you might want to try DynImage, which runs faster, and gives additional benefit of using it: the date labels finally shown on the graph!
To switch to DynImage, please change cfgDynimage to True in appconfig.asp, line # 78.
The DynImage graph procedure is experimental in this RC2, please feel free to submit your suggestions and error reports to Forum.
ASPCanvas: http://chris.brimson-read.com.au/?page_id=5
DynImage: http://www.oz.net/~cashton/dynimage.html
Quick Installation Guide
- Extract everything into a subfolder on your intranet IIS server
- Add this subfolder as the virtual folder to your intranet Web site
- Remove anonymous access from this virtual folder. Through the NTFS permissions, limit the list of persons, who can open the statistics. Optionally, limit access by IP addresses
NOTE: In the latest release, you may want to allow everybody to open statistics. What people will actually see though, depends on the application own configuration. Unlisted users will see only limited details
NOTE: To prevent an easy DoS attack through the slow graph-rendering page, it is strongly recommended to disallow anonymous access, thus people will have to authenticate to open the application
- Edit appconfig.asp file and enter your own data at the bottom:
usrDBserverVer = 2000
usrDBserverIP = "IP address of the SQL server. DO NOT USE NAME"
usrDBme11db = "name of the reporting database"
usrDBuser = "login name with db_datareader role on the reporting database"
usrDBpassword = "the password of the login"
NOTE: To run this application with SQL 2005 Server or Express, change the value of usrDBserverVer to 2005.
NOTE: I recommend you to use two SQL logins. Use first login (name it gfiservice) in GFI MailEssentials Reporting configuration, and the second login (say, gfireport), in this application's configuration. Login of gfiservice is to be used to create the tables and to write data into the database, and thus is has to have the db_owner role over the SQL database. The login this application uses, gfireport, needs only read access, so give it the db_datareader role
NOTE: If you choose DynImage, please register it's DLL library first, invoking register.cmd file from dynimage folder
NOTE: Also change other variables, with a name starting with usr
- Open the page with this application from your web browser, authenticate and enjoy!
F.A.Q.
Q. I am getting this error:
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80040e07'
The conversion of a char data type to a datetime data type resulted in an
out-of-range datetime value.
A. This error is returned by the SQL Server, when it finds that
the date format in the SQL query is different from the database one.
gfime11webstat uses all dates in English (US) format, but your SQL Server
might use different locale, for example, if you are in Europe.
To fix this, change the locale for the GFI ME 11 database to English (US):
Run the following commands from the Query Analyzer:
USE gfime11databasename
GO
EXEC sp_configure 'default language', 1033
GO
RECONFIGURE
GO
This should change the locale of the database from what is configured as
the default for your SQL Server, to English (US). Then, both gfime11webstat
and the SQL database will be working with the same date format.
Contacts
This application is being developed and supported by Mikhail "Mike" Levin. It is hosted at SourceForge server at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gfime11webstat/.
If you have any questions or comments, visit the applications's forum.
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