NAME

       grokevt-parselog  -  Parse  a  windows  event  log  and  generate  human-readable output based on message
       resources stored in a database.

SYNOPSIS

       grokevt-parselog -?|--help

       grokevt-parselog -l database-dir

       grokevt-parselog -m database-dir log-type

       grokevt-parselog [-v] [-H] [-h] database-dir log-type

DESCRIPTION

       grokevt-parselog reads a windows event log (.evt  file)  and  combines  that  information  with  messages
       templates  and  other  resources  stored in a pre-generated database. This is then printed to stdout in a
       comma-separated values (CSV) format.  The database must first be created by grokevt-builddb(1).

ARGUMENTS

       database-dir
              This is the directory where the database is stored. Currently,  the  actual  log  files  from  the
              original system are also stored in this directory tree.

       log-type
              This is the windows name for the log. By default windows has the following logs:

                           Application
                           Security
                           System

              But others may have been created by third party software. Use the -l option to print a list of all
              available log types. (The log names are case-sensitive.)

OPTIONS

       -?     Prints a basic usage statement.

       --help Same as -?.

       -l     Log list mode. Lists the logs available in the specified database.

       -m     Meta information mode. Lists meta information stored in the header of the specified log file. Does
              not print any actual log records. (Format of output in this mode is still subject to change.)

       -v     Verbose mode. Prints status messages to stderr, which can be helpful for debugging.

       -h     Prints  a  header row at the top of the CSV output containing labels for each column. (This is the
              default behavior.)

       -H     Disables the printing of a header row. This is useful when grokevt-parselog is used in a script.

OUTPUT

       While the output format is compatible with programs (such as spreadsheets) that understand  the  de-facto
       CSV standard format, the format is additionally constrained in that each log entry is written to a single
       line.  Also, special characters and non-printable characters are encoded using a URL-like encoding format
       of "%XX" where XX are the hexadecimal digits of an encoded  character.  New  line  characters  and  other
       special  characters  along  with  binary  data  are encoded this way to allow for easy use of grep(1) and
       similar command line tools.

EXAMPLES

       To list all available logs types stored in '~/example.grokevt':

              grokevt-parselog -l ~/example.grokevt

       To read the 'Application' log from the database stored in '~/example.grokevt' and print it to stdout:

              grokevt-parselog ~/example.grokevt Application

       To read the 'System' log from the database stored in '~/example.grokevt' and print it to stdout without a
       header, and with verbosity turned on:

              grokevt-parselog -v -H ~/example.grokevt System

BUGS

       Probably a few. This script has not been extensively tested with some guest platforms.

       The file event log file format is pretty well understood and implemented, but  some  diabolical  wrapped,
       dirty, or fragmentary logs may not be correctly parsed.

       Unicode  support  is  currently  limited. Any suggestions on how to better handle unicode output would be
       appreciated.

CREDITS

       Originally written by Jamie French.  Converted to Python and extended  by  Timothy  D.  Morgan.   Andreas
       Schuster has contributed greatly to the understanding of the event log format.

LICENSE

       Please see the file "LICENSE" included with this software distribution.

       This  program  is  distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even
       the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU  General  Public
       License version 3 for more details.

SEE ALSO

       grokevt(7) grokevt-addlog(1) grokevt-builddb(1) grokevt-dumpmsgs(1) grokevt-findlogs(1) grokevt-ripdll(1)

File Conversion Utilities                         20 June 2011                               grokevt-parselog(1)