|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fastvue interprets logs from Barracuda NG Firewalls and Barracuda Web Security Gateway (previously Barracuda Web Filter) to deliver useful web activity reports to HR, Department Managers and IT!
“The best part for me is that once I setup the reports and who they go to, I am out of the loop totally. The department manager can parse through the report, run more detailed reports, and take action without involving me at all as a net admin. Fastvue Site Clean made it even easier for the managers to understand (How do you explain what a CDN is to the accounting manager?).”
Andrew Reynolds, Frasca
“Fastvue Reporter makes reporting against Internet usage very easy and friendly to use. Non-technical staff/managers can now view reports and get a meaningful and clear picture of what is happening.”
David Sewell, Waimakariri District Council
Don’t Trust Your Firewall’s Internet Usage Reports
Fastvue Site Clean makes the log data from your firewall reflect real Internet usage activity. It removes images, scripts, fonts, ads, and other background traffic so you can send meaningful Internet usage reports and alerts, to the right person.
The Problem of Reporting on the Modern Web
Internet Reports produced by web gateways such as Barracude NG and Web Security Gateway do not distinguish between the web sites people intentionally access, and the web sites that are automatically accessed behind the scenes.
Fastvue Site Clean (Patent Pending) digs deeper and looks at all characteristics of web browsing log file data, to provide a more accurate picture of real web activity.
Powerful Reporting : Zero Learning Curve
Who said enterprise software should be hard to deploy and use? Simply install the app, pull in the data, and you’re ready to enjoy these powerful and incredibly easy to use features:
Live Dashboards
Fastvue Reporter is always ready to show you the latest activity on your network.
Real Time Reports
Get web activity reporting off your desk and into the hands of the people that need it!
Intelligent Alerts
Send instant alerts to the right people as soon as notable issues occur such as enormous downloads, and unacceptable activity. All the detail they need, sent straight to their inbox!
Productivity Reporting
Fastvue Reporter assess web productivity according to your guidelines and shows exactly what is being allowed (or blocked) that shouldn’t be.
Report on Multiple Barracuda NG Firewalls or Web Security Gateways
Running more than one Barracuda NG Firewall or Web Security Gateway? No problem. Just point their syslog streams at Fastvue Reporter and it will collate and report across your entire organization!
Active Directory Integration
Seamless (zero config) AD integration, enables simple reporting across AD Departments, Offices, Companies and Security Groups.
Gantt Style Web Activity Reports
Fastvue’s innovative Activity Reports not only include full activity details such as timestamps and full URLs, but they intuitively group them into browsing sessions with green bars showing exactly when someone started and stopped browsing particular websites. A real time saver.
Advanced Filtering
Need the flexibility to schedule reports for subnets instead of departments, or ‘monitored’ traffic vs ‘allowed’ traffic, or perhaps ‘time qualified’ policies vs all others? Fastvue Reporter’s advanced filtering engine narrows down your reports to anything you can dream up!
Improve Performance
By running reports off-box using Fastvue Reporter, your Barracuda NG Firewall or Web Security Gateway is free to do what it does best – protect your network!
Setup Instructions for New Installations
1. Download and Install
Download Fastvue Reporter for Barracuda and install on a machine (or virtual machine) that meets our recommended requirements for your network size.
Note: Fastvue Reporter is a resource-intensive application by design in order to import data and run reports as fast as possible. We do not recommend installing Fastvue Reporter on a server that provides a critical network service such as a Domain Controller, DNS server, or DFS server. We recommend installing on a dedicated VM (virtual machine) so you can scale the resources appropriately.
Supported Operating Systems
Fastvue Reporter is designed for 64 bit Windows Server Operating Systems running Windows Server 2008 R2 or above.
The Fastvue Reporter installer will automatically install and configure the required pre-requisites which include .Net 4.6 and IIS (Web Server and Application Server roles). It will also install Open JDK and Elasticsearch in its own self-managed directory.
When installing, you will be asked to select a website to install too. If you are installing on a server with existing websites, we recommend creating a new website in IIS and installing to that. You can also choose to install to a sub-folder of an existing website (such as Default Web Site\Fastvue).
RAM / CPU Requirements
|
Network Size |
Recommended Server Specification |
|
Less than 500 Users |
4 CPUs/Cores, 6 GB RAM |
|
500 – 1000 Users |
4 CPUs/Cores, 8 GB RAM |
|
1000 – 3000 Users |
8 CPUs/Cores, 12 GB RAM |
|
3000 – 5000 Users |
8 CPUs/Cores, 16 GB RAM |
|
5000+ Users |
16 CPUs/Cores, 24 GB RAM |
* Virtual environments are recommended so you can scale the resources as required.
Data Storage Requirements
During installation, you are asked where you want the Data Location to be. The amount of data stored per day will vary depending on the amount of traffic flowing through your Barracuda.
The default data retention policy in Fastvue Reporter is 90 days or 90% of drive space, whichever comes first. If 90% of the drive leaves less than 20 GB free, the retention policy will adjust to allow at least 20 GB for Operating System files if the data path is on the same drive as the OS.
These data retention settings can be adjusted in Settings | Data Storage.
We do not advise installing to a network drive due to latency issues affecting the stability of our very frequent read-write operations. For best performance, use a local SSD drive.
Do not install to a mapped network drive, or use a mapped network drive as Fastvue Reporter’s data path, as the assigned drive letters will not exist in the system context – only the user context. If you must use a network drive, specify a UNC path such as \\servername-or-ip\fastvue, but keep in mind the performance issues mentioned above, and you will have to configure ‘full’ permissions for the Fastvue Server’s local system account.
After one or two days of collecting data, check the size estimates in Settings | Data Storage | Settings to see if you need to make adjustments to the data retention policy or your server’s disk space. These estimates become more accurate as data is imported.
To install Fastvue Reporter:
2. Configure Syslog or Web Log Streaming
Barracuda Web Security Gateway (previously Barracuda Web Filter)
Configure Barracuda Web Security Gateway to send Web Filtering Syslog messages to the Fastvue Reporter machine. This is done in Advanced | Syslog | Web Traffic Syslog. . Ensure the Enable W3C Logs option is set to No (Firmware Version 11.0 above).
Barracuda NG Firewall
Configure Barracuda NG Firewall to send Web Log Streaming Messages to the Fastvue Reporter machine. To do this:
Note: In order for HTTPS traffic to be exported via the web log streaming feature in Barracuda NGFW, you need to have virus scanning enabled for HTTPS traffic.
3. Add a Source
Add the Barracuda NG Firewall or Web Security Gateway as a Source in Fastvue Reporter. This can be done on the start page that is presented after installation, or in Settings | Sources | Add Source.
4. Enjoy!
It may take 10-20 seconds before the first records are imported. You can watch the records and dates imported in Settings | Sources. Once records start importing, you can go to the Dashboard tab to see your live network traffic.
Now you can explore all the features of Fastvue Reporter for Barracuda.
Upgrading Existing Installations
1. Backup Fastvue Reporter’s Data and Settings
If you want to upgrade your existing installation, we recommend backing up your existing settings and data first. This is as simple as making a full copy of the contents of Fastvue Reporter’s data location, shown in Settings | Data Storage | Settings (default is C:\ProgramData\Fastvue\Reporter for Barracuda Web Filter).
Tip: Compress the backup, especially the data.fvfs folder as this can be quite large.
2. Backup Custom IIS Settings (if applicable)
If you have secured the Fastvue Reporter website with IIS or applied any other custom settings in IIS directly, you should also backup the web.config file in the website’s directory (usually under c:\inetpub\wwwroot\<fastvuereporter’s site name>). The installer will attempt to also backup and restore this file for you, but this is a good idea just in case there is an issue with the installation.
3. Upgrade / Installation
Once your current environment is backed up, simply run the new installer over the top of your existing installation to upgrade. The installer will pick up your existing settings, so just click next throughout the wizard without making any changes. Once installed, browse to the site and clear the browser cache by hitting ctrl + F5 (cmd + R on Mac).
If upgrading from version 1.0 to 2.0, your existing data will be migrated to our new database format (Elasticsearch). This new database unfortunately requires twice the disk space as the previous version, so your data retention ‘size’ policy will be automatically increased if your available disk space allows for it. You will be notified of the change and given the option to confirm or change the settings.
Data migration can take some time depending on the amount of historical data that you need to migrate. This process will happen in the background and you can view its progress in Settings | Data Storage.
We do not advise installing to a network drive due to latency issues affecting the stability of our very frequent read-write operations. For best performance, use a local SSD drive.
Do not install to a mapped network drive, or use a mapped network drive as Fastvue Reporter’s data path, as the assigned drive letters will not exist in the system context – only the user context. If you must use a network drive, specify a UNC path such as \\servername-or-ip\fastvue, but keep in mind the performance issues mentioned above, and you will have to configure ‘full’ permissions for the Fastvue Server’s local system account.
As the data migrates, you can still use the Fastvue Reporter as normal to view dashboards, alerts and run reports on new data, or data that has been migrated.
4. Enjoy!
It may take 10-20 seconds before the first records are imported. You can watch the records count in Settings | Sources. Once records start importing, you can go to the Dashboard tab to see your live network traffic.
Now you can test out the great features of Fastvue Reporter for Barracuda.
© Copyright 2000-2023 COGITO SOFTWARE CO.,LTD. All rights reserved
