Multiple Isolated Databases

It is possible to configure EventSentry to consolidate information into separate MSSQL databases (e.g. location A writes to database A, location B writes to database B) without giving users/administrator from one site access to any other sites. By following the steps below you can achieve this setup without having to setup multiple ODBC DSNs or virtual directories on IIS.

This scenario is mostly useful for larger networks where information between the various sites needs to be isolated and not accessible by other sites. The instructions below will assume that IIS and Microsoft SQL Server are setup on the same physical machine.

1.	On the machine where IIS is installed, run the EventSentry setup with the "Setup IIS" option or setup the EventSentry web reports manually (click for details).

Open the IIS manager and right click on the “EventSentry” virtual directory and select Properties. Click on the “Directory Security” tab, then click the Edit button under “Authentication and Access Control”. Make sure that “Enable anonymous access” is not checked and “Integrated Windows authentication” and “Basic authentication” are checked.

If IIS is not installed on the same machine as your database server, then you will have to clear the Integrated Windows Authentication so that only Basic Authentication is checked. It is highly recommended in this case that you enable SSL on this server so that username and password are not transmitted in clear text.

3.	From the Start menu run the EventSentry Database Setup Wizard and make sure that "Create SQL File Only" is checked on step 2. Complete the wizard and save the file as eventsentry_table_setup.sql.

4.	Open the eventsentry_table_setup.sql file with a text editor (e.g. notepad) and replace the strings

Steps 5 - 9 need to be repeated for every additional database/site that is being created.

5.	Create a new Windows user account (e.g. EventSentry_Admin_Site1) either on the database server or in your Active Directory, this user account will be used to access the EventSentry information through the web reports.

7.	Using notepad or any other text editor, open the SQL file which was created with step 3 and replace all instances of eventsentry_web with the name of the user account created in step 4, including the domain information. For example, replace eventsentry_web with DOMAIN\EventSentry_Admin_Site1.

8.	Load and execute the SQL File using either Query Analyzer or the SQL Server Management Studio.

9.	Open the web reports in a browser (e.g. http://server1/EventSentry) and navigate to "MAINTENANCE - Profile Editor". Edit the default profile or add a new profile if this is not the first database you are setting up.

Edit the ODBC DSN / Connection String: section by entering a connection string similar to the one shown below:

where "DBSERVER" is the host name of your database server and "EventSentry_Site1" the name of your first database. It is important that you omit the username and password information from the connection string, so that users will be required to authenticate themselves when they try to view a profile.

Click the Apply button to save the profile and verify that you can access the database with the username you created in step 4 (e.g. EventSentry_Admin_Site1).

Instead of setting up subsequent profiles with the profile editor, you can also copy and paste the profile sections from the WebReportsConfig.xml file and simply adjust the NAME, TITLE and ODBCDSN sections in the XML file.

Once you have at least two database setup, you should be able to switch between them simply by switching the profile name on the top right. You should be required to login with the username created in step 5 (e.g. EventSentry_Admin_Site1). This setup is possible because the login information is passed from IIS to the database server, and access to a particular database is only granted if the username is valid for the requested database.