Peepo Starter's Guide

Follow the steps below to get Peepo up-and-running.

• 1Ensure that Java 6 (or higher) is installed on your server.
• 2 Unpack the peepo-version-server.zip archive onto your server.
• 3 Inside the archive you should find a channels directory that contains sample configuration files. The easiest way to get started is by editing these files. Open the file broadcast.settings in a text editor. This file contains the general configuration information for the peepo server. Follow the configuration instructions it contains. For many purposes, the configuration in this file is entirely optional.
• 4In the same directory, open the sample.channel configuration file. Each channel file defines a distinct source of weblog events. A small number of properties configure each channel, two of which are necessary for the server to broadcast the channel. One is the location of the Apache weblog. The other is a list of recipients who should receive the events. Make sure that you accurately enter the address of one or more recieving computers for your channel.
• 5 Run the peepo-server script to start the Peepo server. Immediately on starting, the server will start broadcasting UDP packets as it observes events in the Apache logs. The server can be stopped by typing stop at the command-line. Once stopped the server can be restarted by typing start or terminated by typing quit. Alternatively, the script can be launched in the background and terminated by killing its process.
• 6 Ensure that Java 6 (or higher) is installed on the client machine to which the Peepo server has been configured to broadcast the Apache log events.
• 7 Unpack the peepo-version-client.zip archive onto your client machine.
• 8 Double-click on the peepo-client script to launch the application. After a brief pause, the application window should open.
• 9 In the toolbar at the top of the application window enter the port number that you have configured for the channel.
• 10 Start the application by clicking the "Start" button. Assuming that the weblog being monitored is growing with recorded website hits, the status bar at the bottom of the window should indicate that events are being received. If you can't see any events being recorded, but you know that the channel's weblog is definitely growing, check that firewalls (both at the server-end and at the client end) are allowing UDP data on the port you specified.
• 11 For the application to produce useful telemetry, filters need to be defined that select events for charting. Create a new filter with the name "All Hits" (all the filter fields may be left blank).
• 12 Use the "New" charts button to add a "Multi-Frequency" chart.
• 13 Add the "All Hits" filter to the chart you just created by ticking its checkbox. If everything is going well, you should see the hits on your Apache webserver being recorded in the chart.

Note the following:

• Filters and charts and passwords can be modified at any time while the application is running but, naturally, the address on which the client listens can only be modified while the client is stopped.
• Ensure that any interposing firewalls allow the UDP traffic through on the port that you have specified for Peepo.
• Though Peepo supports encryption, due to its immaturity it has weaknesses... The encryption is based on a simple interleaving of SHA512 but does not mask the unencrypted packet length. It does ensure that two packets with the same payload are encrypted differently each time. I believe it is probably sufficiently robust for its current role given the status of the software.