Creating NSM Custom Reports
Purpose
You use custom reports if you require a view of data
not covered by predefined reports.
Action
To create a custom report:
- In the NSM navigation tree, select Investigate > Report Manager.
- Select a pre-defined report with data similar to
what you ultimately want to save.
- Select File > Save As.
- Use pre-defined report as a template and example,
complete the configuration options, and click OK to save the new report settings.
Table 1 describes configuration
options.
Table 1: Custom Report Configuration Options
Tab
|
Field
|
Description
|
General
|
Name
|
Specify a name for the report as you would like it to
appear in the NSM navigation tree.
|
Report Title
|
Specify a name for the report as you would like it to
appear at the top of the report.
|
Type of Report
|
Select a report type:
- Count-Based—Displays total
current activity to date. For example, the Top Scan Targets report
is a count-based report that displays the total number of scans currently
recorded against a specified number of destination IP addresses.
- Time-Based—Displays activity
over time. For example, the Attacks Over Time report is a time-based
report that measures the top attacks recorded in log records over
a specified period.
- Sum-Based—Displays the sum
of the activities to date.
|
Columns for Report
|
In reports, columns are the same as log fields.
|
Time Period
|
You can configure a report to display all available data
from either a specific date and time or during a specific time interval.
For example, if you suspect that your network was attacked on September
15 at 6:00 PM, you could set the Starting At Time Period Duration
report field in the options on a Top Screen Attacks report to that
time, then generate the report. If you are not sure of the exact date
or time of the attack, but know it occurred during the past 2 days,
set the Duration field in the Time Period Duration report options
on a Top Screen Attacks report to two days, then generate the report.
Note:
The data that you can display in each report is limited
by the amount of log information available.
|
Data point count
|
Typically, the top 50 occurrences of each data type are
displayed in each report. You can configure a report to display more
or fewer data points depending upon the level of detail you need.
For example, if you want to obtain a more precise view of the top
occurrences of events, you would configure a lower data point count
(such as 25).
Note:
The minimum data point count that you can configure in
all reports is 5; the maximum data point count is 200.
|
Chart type
|
Select from the following choices:
- Horizontal bar (default)
- Pie
- Line
- Vertical bar
|
Save Report In
|
In the first selection box, specify whether to save in
the My Reports or Shared Reports node.
In the second box, select the Others folder
or type a new folder name.
|
Filter
|
Columns for Report
|
The columns you selected on the General tab are passed
through. Select the column with the cursor to display the corresponding
Filter Settings controls.
|
Filter Settings
|
Specify filter values related to column settings.
|
 |
Tip:
For information on deleting custom reports, organizing
report folders, exporting reports, and using the NSM guiSvrCli.sh
command line utility and Linux cron utility to automate reporting
jobs, see the NSM online Help.
|
Published: 2009-08-20