Security

How can I exclude disabled Active Directory user accounts from Splunk?

Chubbybunny
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

When a user leaves the company, our IT department has a strict policy in place to deactivate the UserAccount instead of deleting it from the AD. This actually leaves a hole for us because Splunk will continue to sync the account as it does not understand the account has been deactivated within our AD.

While this Answer post seems to fit my situation, I'd prefer to NOT hide the account, and just ignore it.

Anyone know of a workaround to have Splunk ignore disabled accounts??

1 Solution

acharlieh
Influencer

I'll readily admit that I haven't done such in Splunk, but I've used LDAP queries to find disabled accounts. In Splunk you would modify the user base filter, to include a match that the appropriate bit(s) in the userAccountControl attribute are set or not set.

This site seems to have an excellent guide to all of the bits that are encoded in the userAccountControl attribute. They also have a guide to the bitwise ldap filters

Edit: Maybe a filter like:

(&
    (objectClass=user)
    (userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=512)
    (!
        (userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)
    )
)

A user, who is a normal user and not a computer or something, where the account disable bit is not set. One line for easy copying:

(&(objectClass=user)(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=512)(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))

View solution in original post

rbal_splunk
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

I have used it. Say I have two users in AD with attributes like

AD User/account 'Rbal' has accountExpires=08/9/2015
and user 'Bill Paul' with accountExpires=never

In Splunk Configured "User base filter" as

User base filter” as (accountExpires=9223372036854775807) ( where 9223372036854775807 is for never)

Now if I check under Access controls » Users found user 'Bill Paul' is filtered.

0 Karma

yungro
Explorer

To configure Splunk to ignore inactive account, simply add the userAccountControl as follow in the "User base filter" field:

(&(objectCategory=Person)(sAMAccountName=*)(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))

acharlieh
Influencer

I'll readily admit that I haven't done such in Splunk, but I've used LDAP queries to find disabled accounts. In Splunk you would modify the user base filter, to include a match that the appropriate bit(s) in the userAccountControl attribute are set or not set.

This site seems to have an excellent guide to all of the bits that are encoded in the userAccountControl attribute. They also have a guide to the bitwise ldap filters

Edit: Maybe a filter like:

(&
    (objectClass=user)
    (userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=512)
    (!
        (userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)
    )
)

A user, who is a normal user and not a computer or something, where the account disable bit is not set. One line for easy copying:

(&(objectClass=user)(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=512)(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))
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!

Index This | What travels the world but is also stuck in place?

April 2026 Edition  Hayyy Splunk Education Enthusiasts and the Eternally Curious!   We’re back with this ...

Discover New Use Cases: Unlock Greater Value from Your Existing Splunk Data

Realizing the full potential of your Splunk investment requires more than just understanding current usage; it ...

Continue Your Journey: Join Session 2 of the Data Management and Federation Bootcamp ...

As data volumes continue to grow and environments become more distributed, managing and optimizing data ...