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Distributing log files to customers

If you host content, you may have customers who want to receive log files for their content. Windows Media Services offers the following two methods to accomplish this: you can add a LOGURL tag to the client-side playlist file (also called the announcement file) for your customers' content or you can use the logURL attribute in a server-side playlist to send log files to your customers.

Client-side playlists

The LOGURL tag has the syntax <LOGURL href="URL" />, where URL is the path to a directory specified by your customer. The LOGURL tag within an announcement file can be used with clients running Microsoft Windows Media Player version 7.0 or later.

To process the log data, your customers can use the Multicast and Advertisement Agent Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) extension (wmsiislog.dll). They can also write a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) script or develop an ASP page to process the log data.

You must use HTTP or HTTPS for the LOGURL tag. You can add the tag to the ASX scope or to the ENTRY scope. If you add the tag to the ASX scope, the tag applies to all content referenced in the announcement file, including content that is referenced by secondary announcement files. If you add the tag to the ENTRY scope, the tag applies only to the content referenced in the ENTRY scope. Therefore, only client actions associated with content in the ENTRY scope are logged.

You can add multiple LOGURL tags. If you do so, data is logged to each URL you specify. The ENTRY scope inherits tags from the ASX scope. Therefore, if you add one URL to the ASX scope and another to the ENTRY scope, data for the content in the ENTRY scope is logged to both URLs. If you add the same URL to both the ASX and ENTRY scopes, the data is logged only once to the URL. If the announcement file references secondary announcement files, the secondary announcement files inherit any LOGURL tags that are in the primary announcement file. Therefore, LOGURL tags in the primary announcement file also apply to entries in the secondary ASX scopes.

After you add the tag, when Windows Media Player submits a log entry, it performs an HTTP Get first to the URL that was specified in the LOGURL tag to guarantee that the URL is valid. After an acceptable header is returned, Windows Media Player reconnects to the HTTP server and uses an HTTP Post tag to the same URL. The fields logged by the Multicast and Advertisement Logging Agent are the same as the fields logged by the WMS Client Logging plug-in. The only exception is that there are no server statistics because Windows Media Player is only submitting client data.

To provide the customer with more flexibility in sorting and classifying log files, you can specify the values for some of the log file entry fields in the announcement file. When a player connects to the server, the player receives this information in the form of a Content Description List (CDL). When the player sends log information back to the server, it also returns some fields with the values you specified. The cs-media-name and cs-media-role fields can be specified in this manner.

Server-side playlists

The logURL attribute is an attribute of a clientData element in a server-side playlist. The clientData element is a child element that associates text information, banner images, and logging information to the parent media element. Using the logURL attribute of a clientData element is helpful when streaming content from several different sources, each of which need to receive content-specific logging information. The logURL attribute only directs log data that is specific to the media elements in the playlist that have associated clientData elements. If the client is running Windows Media Player for Windows XP and earlier, the clientData element information will be ignored. For more information about the logURL attribute, see logURL attribute. For more information about the clientData element, see clientData element.

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