collect

Description

Adds the results of a search to a summary index that you specify. You must create the summary index before you invoke the collect command.

You do not need to know how to use collect to create and use a summary index, but it can help. For an overview of summary indexing, see Use summary indexing for increased search efficiency in the Knowledge Manager Manual.

This command is considered risky because, if used incorrectly, it can pose a security risk or potentially lose data when it runs. As a result, this command triggers SPL safeguards. See SPL safeguards for risky commands in Securing the Splunk Platform.

Syntax

collect index=<string> [<arg-options>...]

Required arguments

index

Syntax: index=<string>

Description: Name of the summary index where the events are added. The index must exist before the events are added. The index is not created automatically.

Optional arguments

arg-options

Syntax: addinfo=<bool> | addtime=<bool> | file=<string> | spool=<bool> | marker=<string> | output_format [raw | hec] | testmode=<bool> | run_in_preview=<bool> | host=<string> | source=<string> | sourcetype=<string>

Description: Optional arguments for the collect command. See the arg-options section for the descriptions for each option.

arg-options

addinfo

Syntax: addinfo=<bool>

Description: Use this option to specify whether to prefix search time and time-range information fields on to each summary index event. If set to true, adds fields to each event in the following format:

info_min_time=<search_earliest_time>, info_max_time=<search_latest_time>, info_search_time=<search_exec_time>

Default: True when summary events are destined for an events index or when output_format=raw. False when summary events are destined for a metrics index.

addtime

Syntax: addtime=<bool>

Description: Use this option to specify whether to prefix a time field on to each event. Some commands return results that do not have a _raw field, such as the stats, chart, timechart commands. If you specify addtime=false, the Splunk software uses its generic date detection against fields in whatever order they happen to be in the summary rows. If you specify addtime=true, the Splunk software uses the search time range info_min_time. This time range is added by the sistats command or _time. Splunk software adds the time field based on the first field that it finds: info_min_time, _time, or now().

This option is not valid when output_format=hec.

Default: True when summary events are destined for an events index. False when summary events are destined for a metrics index.

file

Syntax: file=<string>

Description: The file name where you want the events to be written. You can use a timestamp or a random number for the file name by specifying either file=$timestamp$ or file=$random$.

Usage: ".stash" needs to be added at the end of the file name when used with "index=". Otherwise, the data is added to the main index.

Default: <random-number>_events.stash

host

Syntax: host=<string>

Description: The name of the host that you want to specify for the events.

This option is not valid when output_format=hec.

marker

Syntax: marker=<string>

Description: A string, usually of key-value pairs, to append to each event written out. Each key-value pair must be separated by a comma and a space.

If the value contains spaces or commas, it must be escape quoted. For example if the key-value pair is search_name=vpn starts and stops, you must change it to search_name=\"vpn starts and stops\".

This option is not valid when output_format=hec.

output_format

Syntax: output_format=[raw | hec]

Description: Specifies the output format for the summary indexing. If set to raw, uses the traditional non-structured log style summary indexing stash output format.

If set to hec, it generates HTTP Event Collector (HEC) JSON formatted output:

• All fields are automatically indexed when the stash file is indexed.
• The file that is written to the var/spool/splunk path ends in .stash_hec instead of .stash.
• Allows the source, sourcetype, and host from the original data to be used directly in the summary index. Does not re-map these fields to the extract_host/extracted_sourcetype/... path.
• The index and splunk_server fields in the original data are ignored.
• You cannot use the addtime, host, marker, source, or the sourcetype options when output_format=hec.

Default: raw

run_in_preview

Syntax: run_in_preview=<bool>

Description: Controls whether the collect command is enabled during preview generation. Generally, you do not want to insert preview results into the summary index, run-in-preview=false. In some cases, such as when a custom search command is used as part of the search, you might want to turn this on to ensure correct summary indexable previews are generated.

Default: false

spool

Syntax: spool=<bool>

Description: If set to true, the summary indexing file is written to the Splunk spool directory, where it is indexed automatically. If set to false, the file is written to the $SPLUNK_HOME/var/run/splunk directory. The file remains in this directory unless some form of further automation or administration is done. If you have Splunk Enterprise, you can use this command to troubleshoot summary indexing by dumping the output file to a location on disk where it will not be ingested as data.

Default: true

source

Syntax: source=<string>

Description: The name of the source that you want to specify for the events.

This option is not valid when output_format=hec.

sourcetype

Syntax: sourcetype=<string>

Description: The name of the source type that you want to specify for the events. If you specify a source type other than stash, the ingested summary data will count against your license usage.

This option is not valid when output_format=hec.

Default: stash

testmode

Syntax: testmode=<bool>

Description: Toggle between testing and real mode. In testing mode the results are not written into the new index but the search results are modified to appear as they would if sent to the index.

Default: false

Usage

The events are written to a file whose name format is: random-num_events.stash, unless overwritten, in a directory that your Splunk deployment is monitoring. If the events contain a _raw field, then this field is saved. If the events do not have a _raw field, one is created by concatenating all the fields into a comma-separated list of key=value pairs.

The collect command also works with real-time searches that have a time range of All time.

Events without timestamps

If you apply the collect command to events that do not have timestamps, the command designates a time for all of the events using the earliest (or minimum) time of the search range. For example, if you use the collect command over the past four hours (range: -4h to +0h), the command assigns a timestamp that is four hours prior to the time that the search was launched. The timestamp is applied to all of the events without a timestamp.

If you use the collect command with a time range of All time and the events do not have timestamps, the current system time is used for the timestamps.

For more information on summary indexing of data without timestamps, see Use summary indexing for increased reporting efficiency in the Knowledge Manager Manual.

Copying events to a different index

You can use the collect command to copy search results to another index. Construct a search that returns the data you want to copy, and pipe the results to the collect command. For example:

index=foo | ... | collect index=bar

This search writes the results into the bar index. The sourcetype is changed to stash.

You can specify a sourcetype with the collect command. However, specifying a sourcetype counts against your license, as if you indexed the data again.

Examples

1. Put "download" events into an index named "download count"

eventtypetag="download" | collect index=downloadcount

2. Collect statistics on VPN connects and disconnects

You want to collect hourly statistics on VPN connects and disconnects by country.

index=mysummary | geoip REMOTE_IP | eval country_source=if(REMOTE_IP_country_code="US","domestic","foreign") | bin _time span=1h | stats count by _time,vpn_action,country_source | addinfo | collect index=mysummary marker="summary_type=vpn, summary_span=3600, summary_method=bin, search_name=\"vpn starts and stops\""

The addinfo command ensures that the search results contain fields that specify when the search was run to populate these particular index values.

See also

Commands

overlap

sichart

sirare

sistats

sitimechart

sitop

tscollect