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Table of Contents

  1. Getting started

    1. Introduction

      1. Synopsis
      2. The Kraken project
      3. The Kraken team
      4. Donation information
      5. Report a bug
      6. What's new?
      7. Contact us

    2. Installation

      1. Synopsis
      2. System requirements
      3. Installation
      4. Other installation tasks
      5. Troubleshooting

    3. Setup

      1. Synopsis
      2. Locating and loading your logs
      3. Reports
      4. Address mapping
      5. Time setup
      6. Filters

  2. Common tasks

    1. Navigation

      1. Synopsis
      2. The menus
      3. The windows

    2. Reports

      1. Synopsis
      2. Generation
      3. Reading your report
      4. Printing

    3. Bad users

      1. Synopsis
      2. Filtering
      3. The report

  3. Other tasks

    1. Updating

      1. Checking for updates

Chapter I. Getting started

1. Introduction

a. Synopsis

After reading this section, you will know:

b. The Kraken project

Kraken Reports is a part of the Kraken project, an effort co-ordinated by a team of varied talents, and initiated by Leigh Finch in 2003, when he began coding what has now become Kraken Reports. While Kraken Reports is our first software release, we hope the Kraken range will eventually include other pieces of technical software.

c. The Kraken team

The Kraken team is:

d. Donation information

We are currently accepting donations through PayPal. Donations can be made through our website. All donations over US$75 will receive our full technical support package.

e. Report a bug

Kraken Reports depends on your feedback to improve. If you find a bug in our program, please contact us and let us know so we can fix it in the next release. To report a bug, simply email our support team at support@krakenreports.com, and type [Kraken Reports Bug] in the subject line. Your feedback is always appreciated.

f. What's new?

g. Contact us

Here at Kraken, we welcome your input on any aspect of the project. Please feel free to contact us at the addresses below.

Need some technical assistance with any Kraken product, or want to report a bug? Drop our support team a line at support@krakenreports.com.

Interested in buying some advertising space at www.krakenreports.com? Click marketing@krakenreports.com" and let our marketing team know.

Want to purchase the full version of any of the Kraken products with included support package? Please contact our sales team for further information at sales@krakenreports.com.

2. Installation

a. Synopsis

After reading this section, you will know:

b. System requirements

Your system must meet the following standards in order to run Kraken Reports:



The proxy cache log you wish to analyze must be in one of the following formats:

c. Installation

After you have downloaded Kraken Reports, you will first need to unzip the folder it comes in. By default, this folder is called "kraken-reports-0.6.zip", and will appear on your desktop in most cases. To unzip, right-click this folder, select "extract all", and follow instructions given by the compressed folders extraction wizard to extract Kraken Reports' program files.

Once program files have been extracted, open the directory containing the unzipped files, and double-click the "Setup" icon to begin. This will launch Windows Installer. Follow on screen prompts to select a directory to install to and specify user and memory preferences.

Congratulations! Kraken Reports is now installed and ready for setup.

d. Other installation tasks

If you haven't already, you will need to install Microsoft .NET Framework in order to run Kraken Reports. We also recommend running Windows Update to search for critical patches to Microsoft .NET Framework before you begin.

e. Troubleshooting

Error: You don't have permission to access the directory

Solution: You don't have administrator privileges for the system you are working on. Kraken Reports can be run without administrator privileges, but you must have administrator privileges to install. Please speak to an administrator to resolve this problem.

3. Setup

a. Synopsis

After reading this section, you will know:

b. Locating and loading your logs

The first time you launch Kraken Reports, you will receive a notification reading "No users. To add users, please go to the tools menu and select "Options"." This notification will continue to appear each time you use Kraken Reports until your log file is correctly loaded.

The location of your log on the server is dependent on the system that you are running. Table A is a guide to help you locate this file.

Table A: Log file locations on different systems

SystemLocation
FreeBSD Port Install/usr/local/squid/var/logs/access.log
Mandrake Linux/var/log/squid/access.log
Microsoft ISA Serverc:\windows\system32\log files\
Red Hat Enterprise/var/squid/access.log
Squid NTinstallation directory\var\logs\access.log
Tarball Install/usr/local/squid/var/logs/access.log


Once you have located this file, please load it to Kraken Reports by opening the Tools>Options menu, then selecting the "General" tab. The main display in this window will show currently loaded logs which are under analysis. Click "Add" to browse for your log file. Once you have selected it, click "Open" to load. Your log file should now appear in the main display. To remove a log file, highlight it and click "Remove". Once you are satisfied with your logs which are loaded for analysis, click "Ok" to confirm changes.

c. Reports

To begin configuring reports to your preference, open the Tools>Options menu, and select the "Report Options" tab.

The "Reports" box in this window displays current report display options. You can choose to display as many of these attributes on your reports as you wish. To select or un-select an attribute, click the check box located to the left of the desired attribute.

The following attributes refer to your user reports. (See subsection II.2.b Generation for more information on generating user reports)

This attribute refers to your proxy reports. (See subsection II.2.b Generation for more information on generating proxy reports).

This attribute refers to website information, displayed in the bottom right-hand window of your screen.

The "Display Options" box in this window displays your current display settings. These settings effect the ordering of your main screen, and can also be adjusted to suit your log type.

You can choose to "Order web sites by popularity", or "Order web sites by name". Ordering by popularity will cause the most visited websites for any given user to appear at the top of the list, and least visited at the bottom. Ordering by name will cause websites to be listed in alphabetical order.

You can choose to "Order users by name", or "Order users by appearance". Ordering by name will cause users to be listed in alphabetical order. Ordering by appearance will cause users to be listed in the order that they appear on your log files, chronologically.

At the bottom of your "Display Options" box, you can switch your "Log Type" and "Order By" options. Log Type must be switched to the type of logs you have loaded for the program to work correctly, either Squid Native or ISA w3c extended. Order By can be switched to either User (show user names in main screen) or IP Address (show IP addresses in main screen).

d. Address mapping

You can access your address mapping settings by clicking the Tools>Options menu, then the "Address Mapping" tab. Address mapping allows you to assign user names to IP addresses that appear on your log files for easier tracking of system users. Address mapping is optional and can be disabled at any time.

To enable and begin address mapping, please check the box at the top of the window reading "Enable Address Mapping".

To map a user name to an IP address, click the "Add" button below the main list box. This will create a new window with an "IP Address" field, and a "User Name" field. Type the IP address you wish to map in the first field, and the user name you wish to associate it with in the second field. Click "OK" when you are finished.

The user name you have just filled in and corresponding IP address will now appear in the main list box you can see. Repeat the above step to create additional users, then click "Ok" when you are satisfied.

e. Time setup

If your server is logging in a different timezone to your system, you will need to adjust your server offset accordingly. To do this, click Tools>Options, then open the "Time Options" tab.

Adjust your server offset by using the up/down arrow next to the "Server Offset" field in this window, or clicking into this field and manually typing in your desired offset. This offset represents how far behind or ahead you are from your server. A positive offset (+) means you are ahead of the timezone your server logs to, for example, if your server logged an event at 8 AM, it really took place at 12 AM. A negative offset (-) means you are behind the timezone your server logs to, for example, if your server logged an event at 3 PM, it really took place at 1 PM. For your convenience, you can set this offset anywhere between -24 and +24. Please remember to take factors such as daylight savings into account, as Kraken Reports will not automatically adjust to this.

f. Filters

Setting up your filters will allow you to scan website and page names that users on your system have visited for any term that you may deem to be inappropriate. The results of this scan will appear in your reports.

To begin setting up your filter terms, click the Tools>Alter Filters menu. This will launch an "Alter Filters" window.

This window contains two boxes, "Filtered Expressions" and "Filter Exclusions". Terms listed in the "Filtered Expressions" box will be used to filter as inappropriate terms. The number of sites that a user has visited containing one or more of these terms in its title will appear on your reports as "Number of Unapproved Sites Visited". Terms listed in the "Filter Exclusions" box will cause a site with any of these terms in its name to be ignored by the "Unapproved Sites" filter. These sites will not appear as unapproved on your reports, even if their name also contains a terms from the "Filtered Expressions" box.

To add an expression to either box, begin by typing it in the "Add" field, and clicking "Add". The typed expression will now appear in the main list box. To remove an expression which is no longer necessary, highlight that expression in the main list box, and click "Delete".

If you wish to edit a filter term, begin by highlighting that term in the main list box. It will now appear in the "Edit" field. Make any necessary changes here, then click "Edit". The edited term will now replace the old term in the main list box.

To search for an entered term in either list box, enter the term in the "Find" field, then click "Find". If this term appears in the list box, the box will jump to this term and it will appear highlighted. If it does not appear, clicking "Find" will have no effect.

II. Common tasks

a. Synopsis

After reading this section, you will know how to navigate and understand the menus and windows of Kraken Reports.

b. The menus

This subsection will explain navigation of the menus on the tool bar of Kraken Reports.

c. The windows

This subsection will explain navigation of the windows on your Kraken Reports screen.

2. Reports

a. Synopsis

After reading this section, you will know:

b. Generation

Kraken Reports generates two types of reports; user reports, and proxy reports. A user report displays the activities of any selected user on the system, while a proxy report displays the activities of every user on the system, as well as cumulative totals for the system.

To generate a user report, highlight the desired user in the user window. A report on this user will automatically appear in the user reports window. To generate a proxy report, click Statistics>Proxy Report. This will open a proxy report in a window of your default browser.

c. Reading your report

This subsection will explain the terms used in your reports.

d. Printing

To print a user report, click the "Print" button at the bottom of the user report. To print a proxy report, follow the usual procedure to print from your browser.

3. Bad users

a. Synopsis

After reading this section, you will know:

b. Filtering

To filter for bad users, you will first need to apply filters to your log files. This is explained in subsection I. 3. f. Filters. One these filters have been applied, the results of this filtering will be shown in user reports, under "Number of Unapproved Sites Visited", and also on your proxy reports.

c. The report

You can generate bad user reports by clicking Statistics>Bad Users. This will launch a "Bad Users" window, which displays users who have visited unapproved sites in the left column, and the unapproved page names in the right column. Right-clicking on one of these pages will give you the option of viewing "Show Information" (web page information), "Reason Listed" (which one of your filter terms matched this web page), or "Go To" (visit this web page in a window of your default browser).

III. Other tasks

1. Updating

a. Checking for updates

It is necessary to regularly check for updates to Kraken Reports to ensure you are running the latest version. To check for updates, click Help>Check for updates. This will open your default browser and redirect you to the version check page, which will confirm that you are running the current version, or offer you the new version to download.