There are three types of logging for Network Policy Server (NPS):
- Event logging.
Used primarily for auditing and troubleshooting connection attempts. You can configure NPS event logging by obtaining the NPS server properties in the NPS console.
- Logging user authentication and accounting
requests to a local file.
Used primarily for connection analysis and billing purposes. Also useful as a security investigation tool because it provides you with a method of tracking the activity of a malicious user after an attack. You can configure local file logging using the Accounting Configuration wizard.
- Logging user authentication and accounting
requests to a Microsoft® SQL Server™ XML-compliant database.
Used to allow multiple servers running NPS to have one data source. Also provides the advantages of using a relational database. You can configure SQL Server logging by using the Accounting Configuration wizard.
Accounting Configuration wizard
By using the Accounting Configuration wizard in the NPS console, you can configure the following four accounting settings:
- SQL logging only. By using this
setting, you can configure a data link to a SQL Server that allows
NPS to connect to and send accounting data to the SQL server. In
addition, the wizard can configure the database on the SQL Server
to ensure that the database is compatible with NPS SQL server
logging.
- Text logging only. By using this
setting, you can configure NPS to log accounting data to a text
file.
- Parallel logging. By using this
setting, you can configure the SQL Server data link and database.
You can also configure text file logging so that NPS logs
simultaneously to the text file and the SQL Server database.
- SQL logging with backup. By using this
setting, you can configure the SQL Server data link and database.
In addition, you can configure text file logging that NPS uses if
SQL Server logging fails.
In addition to these settings, both SQL Server logging and text logging allow you to specify whether NPS continues to process connection requests if logging fails. You can specify this Failover setting in local file logging properties, in SQL Server logging properties, and while you are running the Accounting Configuration wizard.