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User Guides

BrowserMon 2.0 User Guide

Introduction

In today's digital landscape, effective monitoring of web activities is crucial to safeguarding enterprise security. BrowserMon 2.0, developed by EUNOMATIX, is a cutting-edge solution designed to provide detailed insights and control over browsing activities within organizations. This guide will walk you through the key features and setup of BrowserMon 2.0, helping you understand how to utilize it effectively.

Key Features

Centralized Logging with Watchdog

BrowserMon 2.0 collects browsing history data from various devices and sends it to a central server in real-time. This feature enables comprehensive security analysis and facilitates easy searchability without relying on external tools like Splunk or Elasticsearch. It also helps meet data retention and regulatory compliance requirements.

Kafka Integration for Central History Database

BrowserMon 2.0 integrates with Apache Kafka and MongoDB to store browser history data in a central database. This setup provides scalable data management and real-time data streaming through Kafka, ensuring up-to-date and consistent logging and analytics. This feature is optional and can be disabled if other solutions like Splunk or Elasticsearch are preferred.

Health Checker Implementation

BrowserMon 2.0 includes a Health Checker that verifies the licensing status by sending periodic requests to the Watchdog server. It attempts multiple retries until confirmation is received, ensuring that controllers and the BrowserMon service remain operational.

Enhanced Dashboards with Grafana

BrowserMon 2.0 includes Grafana-based dashboards that offer clear visibility into:

  • Controller counts
  • Operational issues

These dashboards help administrators quickly derive actionable insights from browsing data.

Accessing the Grafana Dashboard

Users can view the Grafana dashboard by navigating to http://localhost:1514 in their web browser. This dashboard presents the history and analytics data collected by the watchdog server in an intuitive and visual format.

Types of Configurations

BrowserMon 2.0 supports different types of configurations to tailor settings based on organizational needs:

  1. Default Configuration (browsermon.conf): Provides baseline settings for all deployments.

  2. Central Watchdog Configuration (browsermon-watchdog.conf): Overrides default configurations for centralized management this configuration is recieved from the watchdog server and written in the browsermon-watchdog.conf file in your installation directory.

  3. Local Configuration (browsermon-local.conf): Allows local administrators to customize settings for specific requirements, overriding both default and watchdog configurations.

Example Configuration File (browsermon.conf)

[default]
browser=firefox
mode=scheduled
schedule_window=1m
logdir=C:\\browsermon\\history
logmode=csv
rotation=1h
backup_count=0
log_level=DEBUG
watchdog_ip=0.0.0.0
watchdog_port=5601
kafka_mode=true
kafka_server_url=localhost:9092
machine_label=DefaultLabel

Configuration Explanation

  • browser: Specifies the browser(s) to monitor, such as Firefox, Chrome, or Edge.
  • mode: Determines whether BrowserMon operates in scheduled mode (default) or real-time mode.
  • schedule_window: Sets the interval between each browser data collection iteration.
  • logdir: Defines the directory where browser history log files are stored.
  • logmode: Specifies the format of the history log files (CSV or JSON).
  • rotation: Sets the interval for rotating history log files.
  • backup_count: Defines the number of backup copies of history log files to retain.
  • log_level: Specifies the logging level (INFO or DEBUG).
  • watchdog_ip: IP address of the Watchdog server.
  • watchdog_port: Port number where Watchdog service listens for connections.
  • kafka_mode: Enables (true) or disables (false) Kafka integration for centralized logging.
  • kafka_server_url: URL of the bootstrap Kafka server.
  • machine_label: The label you will sent as a payload to the watchdog server.

*All these config variables can be changed in browsermon-local.conf file except watchdog_ip and watchdog_port.

Additional Enhancements

  • Increased Timeout: The downtime limit for Watchdog has been extended to five hours for enhanced reliability.
  • Improved Key Management: Enhanced security and usability.
  • Service Management for Watchdog: Watchdog can now operate as a binary on Linux systems, streamlining management.

Getting Started

  1. Install BrowserMon Controller: Deploy the lightweight agent on devices running Linux, Mac, or Windows.

  2. Configure Watchdog: Set up the Watchdog server to centrally manage and monitor all BrowserMon controllers.

  3. Define Configurations: Utilize mapping.conf and browsermon-watchdog.conf to customize configurations based on organizational requirements this is to be done in the watchdog server porgram.

  4. Enable Central Logging: Optionally, configure a central history database for real-time logging and analytics.

By following this guide, you'll be equipped to effectively deploy and utilize BrowserMon 2.0 to enhance your organization's web monitoring and security capabilities.