I’m looking to see if there’s a way to write VB.NET programs which can analyze log files which live on my Linux box. Example: I would like to read information from /var/log/maillog and generate statistical analyses of the number of e-mails sent internally and the number sent between the outside world, the number flowing in, the number flowing out, the users and/or departments with the highest e-mail usage, etc.
I’m a networking guy who doesn’t program often, although I have done so in thepast. I’ve even (once) taught a beginning class on VB.NET, so I have some very basic familiarity with it. In years past, I programmed more with perl, since the majority of my programming has been done on Linux boxes for either generating web pagesor analyzing log files.
What I need help with is figuring out how to connect to the Linux box to read in the files I wish to analyze. Ideally, I’d like to do this in a way that allows me to “remember” when I’ve already read some information, so I don’t slurp in information I’ve already got. Right now, I don’t know how to get started connecting to the log from within VB.
Thanks.
— Rick
