WW2DSHIELD
Prepares Log Records for submission to DSHIELD.ORG
Version 3.0.16  August 18, 2007

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Overview       Quick Reports Version History
Setup       Advanced Uses Other Features
E-mail and SMTP setup       Scheduled Reports Support

OVERVIEW

    WW2DSHIELD ("W2D") prepares WallWatcher log records for submission to DSHIELD.ORG.  It can use the actual WallWatcher logs or records you have filtered through WallReViewer.

    During the one-time setup, you can choose how you want to submit your reports.  The preferred way is by e-mail, but you can also use your Browser (it gives you more control and a chance to preview what you're going to submit).  After you've done the Setup, you can submit occasional reports when you think there's excessive activity, or schedule automatic daily e-mail reports.

    To prevent duplicate submissions, W2D keeps track of the latest timestamp it has successfully sent to DSHIELD.ORG, and won't send any records with an earlier timestamp.  You can temporarily bypass this feature.


SETUP

QUICK SETUP

    To run W2D manually, just start it, select one or more logs, and click "Submit."  However, it's more convenient to have it run automatically:


MORE DETAILED SETUP

  1. If you haven't already done so, download WW2DSHIELD using the link above, then unzip its contents to the folder that already contains WallWatcher and WallReViewer.  The ZIP file includes sndmail.dll, which must be available to W2D even if you're not using its e-mail feature;
  2. Double-click "ww2dshield.exe" to customize it.  You only need to do this the first time, or when you want to change the setup;
  3. In the FILES area, select the drive and folder containing your WallWatcher logs.  Usually, that folder will have been pre-selected for you;
  4. In the SETUP area:
    1. Decide how you want to submit the reports:
    2. If you have a DShield Userid, enter it also.  Otherwise, leave it at "0", which DSHIELD.ORG will also accept;

    3.  
    4. PRIVACY: Inbound log records probably contain your real IP Address.  If you do not want to reveal that address to DSHIELD, check the "Privacy" option, enter your real IP Address, and then choose the replacement method to be used throughout the report:
    5. FILTERING: If you've told WallWatcher and / or WallReViewer to hide certain IP Addresses, URLs, websites, or ports; and want to omit those from your DShield reports, check Omit Hidden Records.  Otherwise, Inbound records from your e-mail server and other trusted sites will be included in these reports.

    6.  
  5. Click "Save Setup";
  6. Click "Exit"; you're done with the one-time Setup.

TWO WAYS TO MAKE OCCASIONAL REPORTS

    You can submit an unfiltered report directly by just running WW2DShield, or filtered reports by using WallReViewer.  Here's a summary of the second approach:

  1. Run WallReViewer ("WRV") and use its filters to select only the records you want submitted to DSHIELD.
  2. Use WRV's "DSHIELD" menu to choose what you want submitted to Dshield ("All", "Window", or "Range"; normally, you will want to select "All").
  3. If you've chosen to Submit at website, you will see DSHIELD.ORG's page in a browser window:
  4. W2D logs the outcome of its submissions in a file called "WW2DSHIELD.LOG", and you can check this from time to time to make sure everything's been working properly.
  5. If you are registered with DSHIELD.ORG, have provided a valid e-mail address and User ID, and have asked them to send you confirmations, you should receive those confirmations by e-mail.  That may take some time.

MORE ABOUT USING WW2DSHIELD

    You can use W2D in three different ways: through WRV as described above, directly, or on a schedule, through the Windows Task Scheduler.  If you want to send unfiltered reports occasionally, the direct way is probably the one to use.  If you want to be more selective, use WRV's filtering capabilities and its "DShield" option on the FILE menu.  If you want to submit daily reports automatically, use the scheduled method.

USING WW2DSHIELD DIRECTLY

    To change the Setup or to select specific files to be reported, you can start W2D by double-clicking on its name or a shortcut to it.  You can use filtered WallReViewer report files or actual WallWatcher logs.

To filter the log information through WallReViewer, which will also let you summarize several logs into one report:

  1. Run WallReViewer ("WRV") and use its filters so that it only shows the records you want submitted to DSHIELD;
  2. Use WRV's PRINT menu to "Print to File" and then select what you want printed ("All", "Window", or "Range").
  3. Run WW2DSHIELD.EXE yourself by double-clicking on it or a shortcut to it;
  4. In the FILES area, select the file you just prepared in WallReViewer.  It will be in the WallWatcher folder, so it should be in the file list that is already on the screen;
  5. You can change the SETUP if you wish to do so;
  6. If you want to save this setup for future use (so that you won't have to re-enter everything), click the "Save" button. This does NOT save the name of the file you've selected, but does save the path to it.
  7. When you've finished making your selections, click "Submit Report".

To select entire WallWatcher logs (one day of records per report):

  1. Run W2D by double-clicking its name or a shortcut to it;
  2. In the Select File area, choose the WallWatcher log file(s) you want to submit.  WW log files are named: LOG yyyy-mm-dd.TXT;
  3. Make sure your Setup is satisfactory;
  4. Click "Submit Report";
  5. You'll see the outcome in the message area of the window.  Usually, it will just confirm that the report has been sent.  The most common "error" message will be that "no reportable events" were found, because:
  6. If you're submitting the report at the website, DSHIELD.ORG's Report Submission page will open, and you can Paste your report and submit it.
  7. If you want to submit additional logs, you may do so.  DSHIELD.ORG requests that you not submit the same records more than once, and W2D keeps track of the most recent timestamp it's already submitted to prevent duplicates.

RUNNING WW2DSHIELD ON A DAILY SCHEDULE

    This method is provided for people who want to submit daily, automatic reports by e-mail.  It only works on a daily basis, not weekly or anything else; and it only works if your computer is running at the scheduled time.  Before relying on an automatic schedule, you probably should use W2D manually to submit one or two WallWatcher logs directly, make sure that it works, and get a positive confirmation from DShield.

  1. Make sure your W2D Setup uses e-mail and that it works properly (you've used it manually and gotten a confirmation back from DShield);
  2. Start the Windows Task Manager, or whatever automatic scheduler you are using.  If you aren't using any scheduler, the rest of this won't work.  The instructions below are for the Windows Task Manager:
  3. Select "Add new task", then the Wizard (the Wizard likes to think for a while, so be patient);
  4. Browse to "WW2DSHIELD.EXE" and select it;
  5. Schedule it to run daily.  If you leave your computer on overnight, run it any time after midnight.  Otherwise, choose a time when your computer is likely to be running;
  6. Click "open advanced properties", then click Finish;
  7. The Task tab of the Settings window will open, highlighting the program  path and name;
  8. Put a quotation mark " before and after the highlighted path and name;
  9. After the final quote, type a space, a dash, and the letter "Y" (for 'yesterday') or the letter "T" (for 'today').  These must NOT be in quotes, and case doesn't matter.
  10. Example:  "C:\Program Files\Wallwatcher\Ww2dshield.exe" -y -q
  11. Click "OK".  If you check the setting later, the quotes may have been removed by Task Scheduler.  That means they weren't needed, which is OK, too.
  12. You should see "WW2DSHIELD" as a scheduled task in the list;
  13. Close the Task Manager's window and you're done.  The reports will be sent in every day until you change the schedule or W2D's setup, or are no longer running WallWatcher;
  14. You can check "WW2DSHIELD.LOG" from time to time, to make sure the reports are being submitted.  If you're registered with DShield, have provided your real e-mail address, and asked them for confirmations, DSHIELD.ORG will send you those confirmations, which is even more reassurring.
    NOTE:  If you remove WW2DShield from your system, also remove it from the Task Scheduler.


E-MAIL and SMTP SETUP


EMAIL ALTERNATIVES

    W2D may be unable to contact the SMTP Server or receive a response from it for several reasons, most of which are security and spam-related: ISP's try to prevent unauthorized use of their MailServers, firewalls try to filter out spam (outgoing as well as incoming), and some routers block certain kinds of communications.


OTHER FEATURES

DUPLICATE RECORDS

DSHIELD.ORG has asked all of us to avoid submitting the same record more than once.  W2D does this by keeping track of the latest timestamp in each report it successfully submits (the 'threshold').  Only records later than the threshold will be included in subsequent reports. W2D updates the threshold after each successful submission and shows it in its window.

You can temporarily bypass this safeguard by unchecking "Only use records dated after".  It will turn itself back on after each successful report submission.

The current threshold timestamp is stored in a file named WW2DSHIELD_DATEGUARD.INI. If you erase that file, the threshold will revert to 2000-01-01.

The threshold resolution is 1/100 second.  The report resolution is one second.

W2D does not use or update the threshold when you're running the self-test, only when you're actually submitting reports to DSHIELD.ORG.
 

GENERAL REPLACEMENT
This is like the "Replace All" feature in a word processor.  It lets you tell W2D to search every log record for a certain text string, and to replace every occurrence of that text with other text.  Neither may be blank or null, and only one pair of text strings may be used.  The values will be included in any "Saved Setup."  This replacement is separate from the "Privacy" feature.

Use this at your own risk!  You can create invalid records (bad IP Addresses, etc).  This feature has been added because a couple of people have asked for something like it.  Please test it by sending an email to yourself and examining the result.


VERSION HISTORY
 

Version Changes
3.0.16 new: the "emailport" keyword in WW2DShield.Ini can be used to specify a non-standard port (normal port is 25)
3.0.15 new: if MailServer does not respond, or response is not received, W2D periodically asks you whether to continue waiting or to terminate
mod: sends emails to 'report@dshield.org' instead of 'reports@dshield.org'
mod: documentation suggestions to bypass non-responsive MailServer problems
3.0.14 new: uses "Sndmail.dll" version 2.4
new: uses "Auth=CRAM-MD5" for sending emails, if (and only if) a password is supplied
3.0.13 mod: you can override the default path to the Log files by selecting a different path and then clicking "Save Setup".  (The default path is the one used by WallWatcher itself.)
fix: rejected logs containing the "Local" category (Direction) code
3.0.12 fix: was rejecting files containing extra information
3.0.10 new: -Q command-line switch tells W2D to quit after an automatic run, even if no report was sent.
mod: retries sending email up to four times before giving up
2.0.19 mod: recognize additional record types related to newly supported Routers
2.0.18 fix: was logging twice to History file when only one day was sent automatically
2.0.17 fix: icmp records sometimes were not formatted properly for DShield
2.0.16 new: add Userid / Password Authentication capabilities. Use ONLY if necessary.
fix: handle large log files that produce over 32,767 records for submission.
mod: process large files much faster than before, and show progress in files.
2.0.14 mod: enable "Submit" button when data from WallReViewer is on the clipboard
2.0.12 mod: show more detailed information when e-mail cannot be sent
2.0.11 mod: when a LOCAL NAME is in the LOCAL ADDRESS field, remove it from report
2.0.10 new: recognize WW version 2 tabbed-file format, as well as version 1 file format
1.0.17 fix: W2D did not handle WallReViewer's new screen format properly, so reports were either not submitted or were rejected.  This new version should process WRV-initiated submissions correctly regardless of the version of WRV you are using, but you probably will want to upgrade to the current version of WRV.
1.0.16 mod: if Router log records contain message protocols, include those protcols in submissions.  If not, continue to use "???" to indicate unknown protocol.
1.0.15 new: Added General Replacement feature
1.0.14 fix: URL's were not being removed from the 'Local Address' portion of reports.  This only occurred if 'convert local addresses to names' was enabled in WallWatcher.
1.0.13 fix: further correction to problem addressed in 1.0.11
1.0.12 new: Add a cc option to send copies of e-mail submissions to yourself, and a History option to keep copies of the submissions in a disk file.
1.0.11 MMake sure W2D uses the directory WallWatcher is currently using for its logs, even if that directory changes.
1.0.10 Revised how the log directory is chosen; use WallReViewer.Ini to find it.
1.0.09 'Omit hidden records' now checks for hidden ports as well as hidden addresses.
1.0.08 WRV Summary reports are no longer accepted.
To prevent duplicate submissions, W2D now keeps track of the latest record ever submitted, and won't allow anything earlier than that afterwards.
When running automatically (scheduled or through WRV), error messages will not be displayed, but will be in Ww2dshield.LOG
Fixed several "Setup" errors.
1.0.07 Fixed several errors, improved appearance and content of ww2dshield.log
1.0.06 Simplified the user interface: it's a one-step submission now.
Added "Omit hidden records" support
1.0.05 Added e-mail and scheduled submission capabilties.
1.0.04 'Privacy' changed to comply with DSHIELD.ORG's "obfuscation" standards.

Please send feedback, questions, and problem reports to: support@wallwatcher.com . Please include a name such as "WW2DShield" or "W2D" in the SUBJECT line to bypass the spam filters.