Where is Event Log File?
An event log is a chronologically ordered list that stores significant events. This kind of file is commonly used in Windows systems, Linux based operating system, hardware devices, and applications.
Analyzing these files is essential to a variety of operations in computing including DevOps, security operations, and IT support. These include monitoring and alerting, forensics, and auditing.
System
System event logs are important for monitoring system performance, troubleshooting hardware or software issues, and detecting potential security threats. These logs record important information such as operating system events, hardware faults, user logins and logouts, application errors, and more.
System events are broadly classified into a few default categories based on the component that is at fault. For example, the Directory Service log records all Active Directory-related events. Other event logs are logged in customized categories like analytic or debug, enabling additional verbosity to help with root cause analysis.
Many of the events recorded in a Windows Event Log are ephemeral and not indicative of any issue. Having access to event log data over the last day, week, month or longer with a tool such as eG Enterprise helps in understanding trends, identifying recurrent patterns and investigating complex incidents. This helps organizations meet regulatory compliance needs, reduce risk, and improve overall operations.
Application
Application logs contain information about errors experienced by applications installed on the computer. They include commercial software like Microsoft PowerPoint and custom programs that a business has developed itself. These types of errors often indicate serious problems, such as a failure to load the boot-start driver. Windows categorizes event logs into four types: system, security, application and setup.
Each type contains specific events that are logged with an identification number called an event ID. The information includes the source, a description of the task and an event level that indicates severity, such as information, error, verbose or warning.
IT administrators use the event logs to identify issues and troubleshoot problems on the network. These logs also can be useful for security teams to detect unauthorized activity. Events logged to these logs are often saved into a trace file that is used for analysis by support technicians. They can include things like observed vulnerabilities, VPN connection events and changes to firewall rules.
Security
A security event log is a local file that records all the “happenings” on a system. These events include both successful and failed logon attempts, access or modification of files and folders, services and hardware related events, and file deletion.
Besides identifying vulnerabilities, event logs also help resolve IT issues. They can tell when an application or service fails, which could be the result of malicious activity. This information helps security professionals or automated systems to troubleshoot and resolve the issue.
When using Windows, you can view the different event logs via an administrative tool called ‘Event Viewer’. It shows all the logging details, and you can view and copy the results by right-clicking on an entry. The logging information displayed in the window includes Event ID, source, message, and more. You can also see the date and time of an entry. You can use this information to monitor for errors and warnings, or to identify a security threat.
Forwarded
If you have a large IT environment that spans multiple systems, monitoring the events from all your devices can be challenging. This is where event log forwarding can help. It allows administrators to get events from remote computers, also known as source computer or forwarding computers, and store them on a central server; the collector computer. The collected data can then be analyzed and monitored by tools like SolarWinds Log & Event Manager, ManageEngine EventLog Analyzer or other commercial or open-source software solutions.
This process also helps to reduce the amount of data that is sent over the network, which can save you on storage costs. To configure event log forwarding, you first need to create a subscription on the collector computer that “tells” it which type of events to look for and collect from the source computers/forwarders. After the subscription is created, you can set up the syslog servers where the forwarded events will be sent to.