14 DAY TRIAL // Logs are very important because that's where info about things we are doing on the system are stored. If we login or fail to login, if we change the password, information regarding these actions is stored in a log file. From logs you can see actions that take place on your machine or, if properly configured, on other machines. I rarely read logs and when this happens is because of software crashes or malfunctions and I want to know why they occured.
The thing with logs is that they are not very easy to read and that most of the times logs regarding security issues are read to locate the cracker and not to prevent the cracking. The ones who actually break into your system will definitely remove entries from log files that imply their presence in your system. Well, this is just a fantasy because, if you are an average user, it is very unlikely to be hacked on a Linux machine.
What does MetaMonitor ?
MetaMonitor reads actions that come in syslog's or metalog's log file and pops a window that displays the latest entries. This is very useful because you can monitor the log files in realtime. You will instantly see when someone logs in or out your system, creates or removes users and a lot more. Some of the info is good and some of it is junk, but I know for a fact that some people will find this application useful.
After installation, MetaMonitor stays minimized and clicking the tray icon displays the last messages that came in the log file. This is cool because if you set a small lifetime to the pop-up window you can still read the messages easily.
Configuring MetaMonitor
The most important setting is to choose which file to monitor. You have options to monitor either the file used by syslog, metalog or a file of your choice and for those you can set an update interval. Then follows a section from where you set behavior related to pop-ups.
Triggers is what saves and even gives some magical powers to MetaMonitor. You can configure them so that junk messages never reach your desktop. Also you can configure it to display different events in different ways. This means different fonts, icons, pop-up life time and sound for each trigger you set. This just makes the software beautiful but in "Other" tab you have the option to run a command. Well, this makes this software very powerful. If some action that shouldn't take place on your machine is detected you can fire up a script or a program that takes care of the problem or alerts you.
I think that one of the things that made this program popular is the glass theme. It is a very nice transparent theme. Even though I am not very fond of transparency to everything because sometimes it's not very practical, this theme is very nice and I appreciate it. Also available is another theme with a semi-transparent background. I appreciate this one even more because of the usability with any background. A very good thing is that on the website there's a tutorial that explains how to create more themes.
Advanced settings are maybe a little too advanced for most of the users. And I don't mean the setting related to sounds or the ones from where you choose between predefined expressions of syslog and metalog. The headache begins when you try to configure Custom RegExp. I hardly managed to display some of the info from a custom file. It would have been nice if it had an option to read the last line added.
The Good
This program is unique and the thing that gives its power is the ability to assign triggers. Some log info is plain useless and you can set MetaMonitor not to display it, while other log entries are critical and the program can warn you in realtime; with some skills you can even take action to prevent disaster. Let's not forget the support for the beautiful themes.
The Bad
While this program excels at reading syslogs and metalogs, it doesn't quite handle other files that good. One thing that I really miss is the option to read the last line of a file. This option would bring new opportunities to this program.
The Truth
The truth is that this program is unique and that even though I have never used it before, I think it is an excellent way to monitor those logs in real time. I already started to plan how I will use it on my machine and I am also thinking to include it in the very limited list of applications of the NimbleX distro, which is just 180 MB.
