Read time stamp from notepad using batch script - powershell

Question

I'm looking solution for below issue :
We reload our application everyday and it will create the log file on daily.
sometimes the log stop writing because of some issues related to CPU usage and other strange stuff.
Now we want to monitor the log file on every 5 mins, if anything doesn't get updated in the log file then it should trigger an email.
The log file keep updating every 1 min, when the reload of file goes smooth.
I need read time stamp in the log file.The log file has time stamp column , it will write content in the log file in every 5 mins. so i need to read the time stamp inside the file for every 5 mins , if anything doesn't return more then 5 mins then i should trigger alert.
Is there any way to implement the above scenario using batch script or power shell or any other idea's to monitor log file is welcome.
Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

You definately can use Powershell for this purpose!
Make sure you have changed Powershell Execution Policy for scripts. You can change it like this:
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
Here's the simple script that would handle it. It could be made as one/two liners of course, but i tried to make it to be more readable/understandable, there:
$FilePath = 'C:\log.txt' #Log file location
$Minutes = 5 #LastWriteTime older than 5 minutes from current time.
#General email parameters
$SMTP = 'your.smtp.server.local'
$From = 'yourserviceaccount#contoso.com'
$To = 'someperson#contoso.com'
$Subject = 'Action Required'
$Body = 'Log file havent been written from more than {0} minutes!' -f $Minutes
$LastWriteTime = (Get-ItemProperty -LiteralPath $FilePath).LastWriteTime
if ($LastWriteTime -ge (Get-Date).AddMinutes(-$Minutes))
{
Send-MailMessage -SmtpServer $SMTP -Port 25 -From $From -To $To -Subject $Subject -Body $Body -Priority High
}
You could then make a Scheduled Task that will trigger the script file every N-minutes.