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Remix!! Using Powershell to parse ESE Transaction Logs ...

Let me preface this post by saying this: I'm a tad lazy. However, the newest addition to our team, Brad Hughes, is not. Far from it. That being said, he took it upon himself to rewrite my "Rough & Tough" approach to parsing ESE logs in Powershell. Enjoy ...

1. Download & install Powershell

2. Download & install strings.exe; make sure strings.exe is in your path

3. Place all your transaction logs into a temp directory (i.e. D:\templogs)

4. Fire up Powershell

5. Run the following command:

strings.exe -q -n 16 D:\templogs\*.log | foreach-object { ($_.Split(":".ToCharArray(),3)[2]) }| group-object | select-object count,name | sort count | export-csv C:\temp\output.csv

What this is doing:

· Identifies all strings in the logs greater than 16 chars

· Removes the D:\templogs\E00xxxx.log: from the output

· Sorts the output

· Finds all duplicate records, and retains a count

· Sorts the final output (ending with the largest # of occurrences)

· Writes all the output to D:\templogs\output.csv

As before, the output will be sorted from the least number of repeating occurences to greatest, but now it's in a nifty csv format that you use Excel to do all sorts of fancy sorting.

Note: this post will probably be obsolote in the next 15 minutes, as Brad will likely re-write this in assembly next.

 

Update: you'll have to put the output.csv file into a different directory from the logs that you're trying to parse. Otherwise, you'll get into an endless loop where we try to parse the output.csv file as well.

 

strings.exe -q -n 16 D:\templogs\*.log | foreach-object { ($_.Split(":".ToCharArray(),3)[2]) }| group-object | select-object count,name | sort count | export-csv C:\temp\output.csv

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2008
    Hi, when trying this I get strings.exe is not recognized as a cmdlet - any ideas?

  • Anonymous
    November 04, 2008
    You'll need strings.exe in your path; you can download it from: http://live.sysinternals.com/strings.exe. Hope this helps, Scott

  • Anonymous
    February 11, 2009
    This rocks, thanks for the update.  You don;t have to put strings in the path, you can simply do this: .strings.exe -q -n 16 D:templogs*.log | foreach-object { ($_.Split(":".ToCharArray(),3)[2]) }| group-object | select-object count,name | sort count | export-csv C:tempoutput.csv Powershell will run that command (atleast it did on Win7) james

  • Anonymous
    March 02, 2009
    I have a need to search all 30 Transaction Logs for any emails in or out bound to 4 domain names and dumping it into a CSV file.  Will Strings and Powershell be able to do this? And if so what is the code? Thanks Leo

  • Anonymous
    March 02, 2009
    Unfortunately, parsing transaction logs won't get you the specifics you're after (as once the data has made it to the ESE layer, it's no longer "mail" ... it's simply insertions of data into the data store).  However, using the approach above will reveal any strings (and potentially domain names if you're lucky) that are being written into the database. Scott

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2009
    Thanks James. That helps; even on XP!

  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2009
    Hello, When I try this command it seems to run forever. I tried running it against a sample of 50 logs (over night) and even just one log (for about 30 minutes). It creates the output.csv file but it is 0 bytes. I've tried it on both Windows server 2008 and Windows xp SP2. My log file is in c:templogs and I'm outputting the command to c:temp I'm running the command from c:templogs as follows: PS C:templogs> strings.exe -q -n 16 C:templogs*.log | foreach-object { ($_.Split(":".ToCharArray(),3)[2]) }| group-ob ject | select-object count,name | sort count | export-csv C:tempoutput.csv If I take out the sorting part of the command it outputs to the .csv just fine and it ends up being about 200k for one log file. Of course this file makes no sense since it hasn't been split/sorted. I'm just wondering if I need to do something else to get the command to actually finish. Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2009
    While I'd love to say the Powershell one has been tried & true, we've had mixed results (at best), while the "native" one (using the Win32 ports of *nix utilities) has stood the test of time: http://j.mp/3Arn9U Thanks, Scott Oseychik

  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2009
    Ah ok. I'll give the nix tools a try. Thanks for the quick reply Scott!

  • Anonymous
    August 18, 2010
    Hello Scott, i did try to run the command and did get the output for the same in CSV file. need more help from you in analyzing the logs from the oputput. if there is any specific method to read them. if you can share it with us will be great help !!!

  • Anonymous
    August 18, 2010
    Hello Scott, i did try to run the command and did get the output for the same in CSV file. need more help from you in analyzing the logs from the output. if there is any specific method to read them. if you can share it with us will be great help !!!

  • Anonymous
    August 22, 2010
    Hi Sid, Try using the same approach using the WIn32 versions of the Unix utilities (previous post) instead.  Unfortunately, I've never had 100% success using this approach with Powershell. Regards, Scott Oseychik

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2010
    This is amazing... Thanks Scott! I ran this against 200 logs and 1 user flashed with 38L entries, this clearly determines something is wrong with this users (mailbox / addins / rules / corruption) just wondering if there is a way we can tweak the command parameter which can point to any specific email/calendar item? -Satyendra

  • Anonymous
    September 07, 2010
    Hi Satyendra, I'm pleased you found this useful!  As you're seeing, the data is subject to interpretation, and the output is only as good as your ability to make correlations between the data patterns & the symptoms being encountered.  Wish I had better news for you :) Regards, Scott Oseychik

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2011
    Is it possible to only show results greater than a number?  Like only show strings that repeated 10 times?

  • Anonymous
    November 10, 2011
    Anything is possible with Powershell :-) ... Let us know what you come up with! Regards, Scott Oseychik

  • Anonymous
    February 27, 2013
    I can get the script to run, however I only get two lines of output: Count: 1 Name:  tempstrins.exs [-a] [-f offset] [-b bytes] [-n length] [-o] [-q] [-s] [-u] <file or directory> No other output, what am I missing?

  • Anonymous
    February 27, 2013
    Hi Dave, I believe you have a syntax error in your example; change 'strins' to 'strings', and you should be good to go. Regards, Scott Oseychik

  • Anonymous
    February 27, 2013
    Scott, I believe I Strings.exe spelled correctly, however my question is was this designed for Exchange 2007 logs, as we are running 2010.  My memory fails me as to when MS moved from 512kb logs to 1024?  Do I need to put any values into the -b or -n fields?  Thanks for the assistance and quick response.  

  • Anonymous
    February 27, 2013
    Hi Dave, I was inferring the syntax error based on your original comment.  Also the size of the logfile shouldn't be an issue here (we still use this approach against Exchange 20130). I guess my next recommendation would be to give the "tried & true" method a spin: blogs.msdn.com/.../rough-and-tough-guide-to-identifying-patterns-in-ese-transaction-log-files.aspx This will rule out anything .NET and/or PowerShell related. Hope this helps! Scott Oseychik

  • Anonymous
    June 03, 2013
    what do asterisks in a transaction log indicate? encrypted data perhaps?

  • Anonymous
    June 03, 2013
    Hi Zeke, Simply means that there were asterisks contained in the transaction logs.  Any encrypted info will be just that: encrypted (not obfuscated/redacted via asterisks). In my experience, I've often found asterisks as part of a meeting request (or a meeting request acceptance) that was converted to plain text. Hope this helps, Scott Oseychik