Monitor SharePoint farm with Advanced IIS Logging

There are so many options when it comes to SharePoint monitoring. ULS logs and IIS logs are some examples.

ULS logs are generated from different components of SharePoint. These logs are very helpful when troubleshooting. We can use tools like ULSViewer to make our lives easier.

On the other hand IIS logs capture all information relevant requests made to our SharePoint server. But it is very difficult to mine relevant information.

What if I want do some filtering before the logging, rather than capturing all requests. Otherwise my logs will eventually fill my storage space. Unfortunately this is not possible directly with IIS logging.

That’s where Advanced IIS Logging comes in to the picture.

Let me summarize my requirement

• I don’t need to log requests coming from 10.10.10.10 server
• I want to apply the filter only to my SharePoint web application
• Other IIS web applications should use normal IIS Logging

Following are the steps to fulfill my requirement

1. Download Advanced IIS Logging and install

Download from this location : https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/advanced-logging

2. Disable Advanced IIS Logging at root level

3. Navigate to SharePoint application and enable Advanced IIS Logging

4. Disable IIS Logging for SharePoint web application

5. Apply the filter at Advanced IIS Logging

6. Verify whether the filter is applied