Splunk Search

Using host tags (or similar) when searching on fields?

Ayn
Legend

I have a number of hosts that have a certain tag on them (let's say "sensitive"). I want to look for account lockout events involving these hosts. Normally this would be simple, just using a query like 'eventtype="winaccountlockout" tag="host::sensitive"' - the twist here is that the actual event occurs not on the hosts themselves but rather on the domain controllers. So, i want to search for account lockout events on the domain controllers that involve the hosts i have that are marked as 'sensitive'.

I was thinking something like 'eventtype="winaccountlockout" Caller_Machine_Name=' where the list is somehow taken from the list of hosts with the "host::sensitive" tag. Is there any way to do that, or solve the problem in another way?

Tags (2)
1 Solution

ftk
Motivator

Use a subsearch as such:

eventtype="winaccountlockout" [search tag::host=sensitive | dedup host | rename host as Caller_Machine_Name | fields Caller_Machine_Name  | format]

Or if you don't want to pass the subsearch results back as the specific field (Caller_Machine_Name) just do

eventtype="winaccountlockout" [search tag::host=sensitive | dedup host | fields host | rename host as search]

View solution in original post

ftk
Motivator

Use a subsearch as such:

eventtype="winaccountlockout" [search tag::host=sensitive | dedup host | rename host as Caller_Machine_Name | fields Caller_Machine_Name  | format]

Or if you don't want to pass the subsearch results back as the specific field (Caller_Machine_Name) just do

eventtype="winaccountlockout" [search tag::host=sensitive | dedup host | fields host | rename host as search]

gkanapathy
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Seems like this would be a good place to consider using lookup tables. Possibly you could even replace the tags with lookup table entries.

Got questions? Get answers!

Join the Splunk Community Slack to learn, troubleshoot, and make connections with fellow Splunk practitioners in real time!

Meet up IRL or virtually!

Join Splunk User Groups to connect and learn in-person by region or remotely by topic or industry.

Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

Make Your Machine Data AI-Ready in Splunk

Every team is getting ready for AI agents.    Watch On-Demand   In this Tech Talk, Splunk platform specialists ...

How to Break a Kubernetes Pod on Purpose and Let the AI Troubleshooting Agent Find ...

Let's say I've just rolled out a Kubernetes Deployment with a typo in the image tag. Nothing explodes. The pod ...

Splunk Add-on for Microsoft Windows 11.0.3: Parse Once, Search Faster

The updated Splunk Add-on for Microsoft Windows helps customers search Windows events faster by reducing ...