Splunk Event Types

In Splunk, an event type is a way to categorize events based on specific criteria or characteristics. Creating event types allows you to perform searches, reports, and alerts on a subset of events that match the defined criteria. Here are some commonly used event types in Splunk:

Security: This event type includes all security-related events such as failed logins, firewall events, and virus detections.
Performance: This event type includes events related to the performance of systems, applications, and networks such as CPU usage, memory usage, and network latency.
Error: This event type includes events that indicate errors such as application crashes, file system errors, and database connection failures.
Availability: This event type includes events related to system availability such as system uptime, service availability, and network connectivity.
Compliance: This event type includes events that are relevant to compliance regulations such as HIPAA, PCI, and GDPR.
User activity: This event type includes events that are related to user activity such as login attempts, file access, and system changes.
Infrastructure: This event type includes events related to the infrastructure such as server and network hardware failures, software updates, and configuration changes.

These are just a few examples of the types of event types that can be defined in Splunk. You can create custom event types based on any criteria that you choose, depending on the needs of your organization.

How event types work:

Event types in Splunk work by allowing you to create a filter that matches specific events based on certain criteria. Once you create an event type, Splunk can then search through all incoming data and apply the filter to determine if each event matches the criteria you’ve set. Any events that match the criteria will be tagged with the event type and can then be easily searched, analyzed, and alerted on.

To create an event type, you typically define a search query that specifies the conditions that must be met for an event to be included in the event type. For example, you might create an event type for all failed login attempts by specifying a search query that looks for events with a specific message or error code.

Once you’ve created an event type, you can use it in searches and reports to easily find and analyze the events that match the criteria you’ve set. You can also create alerts that are triggered whenever new events are tagged with the event type, allowing you to stay on top of important events in real-time.

Overall, event types in Splunk provide a powerful way to categorize and analyze events based on specific criteria, making it easier to identify and respond to important events in your environment.

Significant event type definition restrictions:

Significant event types in Splunk are a type of event type that allows you to automatically identify and highlight important or anomalous events in your data. However, there are some restrictions and limitations when defining significant event types in Splunk. Here are some of the key restrictions to keep in mind:

Search query complexity: Significant event types use a search query to identify significant events in your data. However, the search query must be relatively simple and cannot contain complex commands or subsearches. This is because significant event types are designed to operate in real-time, and complex search queries can cause performance issues.
Data volume: Significant event types are intended to be used on a subset of your data, rather than on all incoming data. This is because processing all incoming data can be resource-intensive and may cause performance issues. Therefore, significant event types are generally limited to a certain number of events or a specific time range.
Field extraction: Significant event types rely on field extractions to identify the key attributes of an event that make it significant. Therefore, it is important to ensure that your field extractions are accurate and complete before defining a significant event type.
Threshold settings: Significant event types require you to set a threshold value that determines what constitutes a significant event. However, setting the threshold too high can cause important events to be missed, while setting it too low can result in too many insignificant events being tagged as significant.

Overall, while significant event types can be a powerful tool for identifying important events in your data, it is important to be aware of these restrictions and limitations when defining them. By carefully considering these factors, you can create effective and efficient significant event types that help you stay on top of important events in your environment.

Creating event types:

Creating event types in Splunk is a powerful way to organize and categorize your data based on specific criteria. Here are the basic steps for creating an event type in Splunk:

Define the search criteria: The first step in creating an event type is to define the search criteria that will be used to identify events that belong to the event type. This typically involves constructing a search query that searches for specific fields or values within the data.
Save the search as an event type: Once you’ve defined the search criteria, you can save the search as an event type by clicking on the “Save as” button in the search results page and selecting “Event Type” as the save format. You can then give your event type a name and description, and specify any tags or categories that will help you organize and search for the event type later.
Test the event type: Once you’ve created the event type, it’s important to test it to make sure it’s working as expected. You can do this by running a search using the event type and verifying that it returns the expected results.
Use the event type: Once your event type is working properly, you can start using it to organize and analyze your data. You can use the event type in searches and reports to filter your data based on the criteria you’ve defined, and you can also set up alerts or notifications to be triggered whenever new events match the event type.

Overall, creating event types in Splunk is a straightforward process that can help you better organize and analyze your data. By defining search criteria and saving them as event types, you can easily filter and search through your data based on specific criteria, making it easier to identify and respond to important events in your environment.

Types of events on Splunk Web:

There are many types of events that can be viewed and analyzed on Splunk Web, depending on the data sources being ingested and the configuration of the Splunk instance. Here are some common types of events that you may encounter on Splunk Web:

System events: These are events generated by the operating system or other system-level processes on your infrastructure, such as logon events, service startup events, or hardware events.
Security events: These are events generated by security systems, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, or antivirus software. These events typically indicate security threats, such as attempted intrusions, malware infections, or unauthorized access attempts.
Application events: These are events generated by applications running on your infrastructure, such as web servers, databases, or custom applications. These events can include error messages, user actions, or performance metrics.
Network events: These are events generated by network devices, such as routers, switches, or load balancers. These events can include traffic statistics, connection failures, or network topology changes.
Custom events: Splunk also allows you to define custom events based on your specific data sources or use cases. These events can be defined using search queries, regular expressions, or other methods, and can be used to organize and analyze your data in a way that makes sense for your organization.

Overall, Splunk Web provides a comprehensive view of all the events generated by your infrastructure and applications, allowing you to easily search, analyze, and visualize your data to gain insights and improve performance.

Save search as a type of event:

Saving a search as a type of event in Splunk allows you to quickly and easily organize and categorize your data based on specific search criteria. Here’s how you can save a search as an event type:

Run your search: First, run the search that you want to save as an event type on the Splunk search bar.
Save the search as an event type: Once you have the search results, click on the “Save As” button in the upper-right corner of the page, and select “Event Type” from the dropdown menu.
Define the event type details: In the “Save As Event Type” dialog box, give your event type a name and a description. You can also specify tags, categories, and other metadata to help you organize and search for the event type later.
Set the priority: Set the priority for your event type. This will determine the order in which Splunk processes event types, and can help you prioritize more important event types.
Preview the event type: Click on the “Preview” button to preview the events that match the search criteria and make sure they match what you expected.
Save the event type: Click on the “Save” button to save the event type in Splunk.

Once you have saved your search as an event type, you can use it to filter your data, create alerts or notifications, and search for specific types of events based on the criteria you defined. Overall, saving a search as an event type is a powerful way to quickly and easily organize and categorize your data in Splunk.