topic Re: Exclude a result in search in Splunk Search

Exclude a result in search

djras123 — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 20:11:28 GMT

I am trying to exclude this from a search. They are almost all the same just the sshd instance changes can someone help me exclude?

ras1-dan-cisco-swi error: PAM: Authentication failure for illegal user djras123 from 192.168.1.2 - dcos_sshd[17284]
ras1-dan-cisco-swi error: PAM: Authentication failure for illegal user djras123 from 192.168.1.2 - dcos_sshd[29461]
ras1-dan-cisco-swi error: PAM: Authentication failure for illegal user djras123 from 192.168.1.2 - dcos_sshd[4064]
ras1-dan-cisco-swi error: PAM: Authentication failure for illegal user djras123 from 192.168.1.2 - dcos_sshd[9450]

Thanks guys besides excluding each one,

Re: Exclude a result in search

marnall — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 20:56:00 GMT

While not the most computationally efficient, you could use a negating keyword search for the string you would like to exclude:

<yourSPL> NOT "PAM: Authentication failure for illegal user djras123 from"

Or have it on a separate search line, if your SPL does not end on a "search" command:

<yourSPL> | search NOT "PAM: Authentication failure for illegal user djras123 from"

Re: Exclude a result in search

PickleRick — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 21:05:31 GMT

While you could do an explicit exclusion as @marnall already showed it's probably not the most effective solution. Remember that by default inclusion is better than exclusion.

So the question is whether the events you want to exclude differ significantly from those you include? (Of course the best thing would be if you could differentiate them by an indexed field).