Question

Event Log - User Logon/Logoff monitor

Asked by: pzozulka

Hello Experts,

I am looking for "custom" ideas on how to centrally monitor user logon/logoff activity. Found some software out there that can monitor these things, but nothing out there to do exactly what we need.

EXACTLY what we need:

Monitor workstations in domain and record Logon/Logoff activity.
(Already have GPO settings for this: "Audit account logon events", "audit logon events")

Need to pull this info from workstations to central server. This is easily done manually, by going to the Event Log on Server and "Connect to remote machine", then pull the logs.

However, I need to pull only certain logs (Logon/Logoff) from workstation, AND I need this to be an automated process.

Can this be done? If so, how?

Any ideas?

Thanks.

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2008-07-22 at 10:29:29ID23585857
Tags

Event Log, Event Monitor, Windows Server 2003

Topics

Automation

,

Windows Network Security

,

Windows 2003 Server

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
6

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Audit User logon/logoff
    Hi to all I have a really simply question, I am running a w2k3 domain and 2003 terminal server, My manager wants to view when people logon and logoff during the day. Throught gp i have enabled to audit all logon/logoff events. My problem is that it takes too much time to se...
  2. Logon/Logoff Auditing
    I disabled a user account at 9AM in our 2003 Native AD, yet I still see the following Success Audit events in our DC's Asecurity log, why is that???? Event Type: Success Audit Event Source: Security Event Category: Logon/Logoff Event ID: 538 Date: 1/4/2008 Time: 11:28:28 ...
  3. Logons and Logoffs
    I need a way to log every logon and logoff of a domain user, I need to be able to obtain the following: Username, Computer Accessed and Date/Time. LogViewer doesn't seem to provide reliable information. Thanks, Brian
  4. GPO Logon/Logoff Scripts
    I want to run a VBS script on Logoff and Logon. I script will record logon and logoff times to a SERVER SHARE. The problem is that some of our users are 50% of the time in the field. What happens when they try to logon or logoff, when they are off the network and cannot commu...
  5. audit logon and logoff
    Hi All, I would like to know how I can audit logins and logoffs of all users, or one user specifically. One of my clients believes his employee may not even be coming into the office at all, and would like to know if I can find out when he/she logs on/off. Any help or guid...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: bbaoPosted on 2008-07-23 at 00:36:29ID: 22066799

> Monitor workstations in domain and record Logon/Logoff activity.
(Already have GPO settings for this: "Audit account logon events", "audit logon events")

you may try this utility and see if it is what you need.

LogonWatcher 2.1.1
http://www.alxsoft.com/win/logons.html

> Need to pull this info from workstations to central server. This is easily done manually, by going to the Event Log on Server and "Connect to remote machine", then pull the logs.

this MS utility may help you generating the logon/off report. as you may put the following line in a script, you may make it automatic.

Log Parser 2.2
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/tools/logparser/default.mspx

a usage sample:

logparser "SELECT ComputerName, TimeGenerated AS LogonTime, STRCAT(STRCAT(EXTRACT_TOKEN (Strings, 1, '|'), '\\'), EXTRACT_TOKEN(Strings, 0, '|')) AS Username FROM \\SERVERNAME\Security WHERE EventID IN (552; 528)'" -i:EVT

hope it helps,
bbao

 

by: pzozulkaPosted on 2008-07-23 at 09:15:53ID: 22070829

HUGE help, out of trying basic Command Line, Kixtart, and Visual Basic Scripts, this seems to be the best method. I just need to tweak this a little bit, and not sure how. Here is the script I am using below:

LogParser "SELECT TimeGenerated, SourceName, EventCategoryName, EventID, ComputerName, SID, Message INTO report.txt FROM Security WHERE (EventID = 528 OR EventID = 551) AND SID = 'BCR\PavelZ'" -resolveSIDs:ON -o:CSV

I would like to omit the message but there is one thing in there that I really need, the "Login Type".
Here are the "message" portion of that script:

"Successful Logon: User Name: PavelZ Domain: BCR Logon ID: (0x0,0x158500) Logon Type: 11 Logon Process: User32 Authentication Package: Negotiate Workstation Name: WS100607 Logon GUID:

Notice the (Logon Type: 11), do you know of a command line switch to get that field, so that I can omit that entire message?

Another question is, is there a way to Output to and SQL DB, I saw that as one of the Output Switches, but not sure how to use it. If you have a sample, that would be awesome.

Thanks so much!

 

by: bbaoPosted on 2008-07-23 at 20:39:43ID: 22075946

use INTO clause to redirect the output to a file or other ODBC data source. the output format is specified by -o:<output_format> clause.

logparser "SELECT ComputerName, TimeGenerated AS LogonTime, STRCAT(STRCAT(EXTRACT_TOKEN (Strings, 1, '|'), '\\'), EXTRACT_TOKEN(Strings, 0, '|')) AS Username INTO XXXX FROM \\SERVERNAME\Security WHERE EventID IN (552; 528)'" -i:EVT -o:SQL

where XXXX is the output.

NOTE: you must make sure your SQL server ODBC driver and target data source ready on the computer running Log Parser.

hope it helps,
bbao

 

by: pzozulkaPosted on 2008-07-23 at 22:15:05ID: 31479030

Thanks man, you're a life saver.

 

by: bbaoPosted on 2008-07-24 at 00:03:51ID: 22076649

glad to help. :-)

 

by: mmoyaPosted on 2011-05-10 at 07:46:02ID: 35729616

@bbao:, I'm having an issue with the syntax. I need to find out the user's logoff activities. Please help! Thank you...

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...