Records

Records are structured information about transaction, message, and network flows that are generated and sent from the ExtraHop system to a recordstore. After your records are collected and stored, you can query for them throughout the ExtraHop system.

Records are collected at two protocol levels: L3 and L7. L3 (or flow) records show network-layer transactions between two devices over the IP protocol. L7 records show transactions that are message-based (such as ActiveMQ, DNS, and DHCP), transactional (such as HTTP, CIFS, and NFS), and session-based (such as SSL and ICA).

For example, if you had fifty HTTP 503 errors, the related HTTP transactions would contain details about the URL, the web server, the client that sent the request, and so on. These details can help you identify the underlying problem.

Before you begin

Click Records from the top menu to create a new record query. From the New Query page, you can specify a filter and record type.

The results appear on the main Records page.

Note:A query can result in millions of records based on the time interval and filter criteria. If a query exceeds the maximum number of query results, a truncated number of records appear. (Explore appliance only.)

Here are some ways you can drill down on record query results:

  • From the records chart, hover over a time interval to view the number of records, or click-and-drag across the chart to narrow the record query results to a time interval.
  • Click a hostname or IP address to view device or external endpoint details.
  • Records that contain suspicious IP addresses, hostnames, and URIs appear with a red camera icon. Click the camera icon to view threat intelligence for the record.
  • Click a packet icon to start a packet query that is filtered by this record.
  • Record results appear in a table by default. Click the Table View or Verbose View icons to toggle the record view.
  • A query might pause intermittently to display the most recent records first. Click Continue Query to display more records.
  • Click the Fields drop-down list to add additional record information to the record view.
  • In table view, click-and-drag column headers to arrange the record information.
  • Apply simple or advanced filters to find potential issues, such as overly-long processing times or unusual response sizes.
Note:To create a record query for a custom metric, you must first define the record relationship by linking the custom metric to a record type.

Filter your records with a simple query

There are a number of ways you can filter your record query results to find the exact transaction you are looking for. The sections below describe each method and show examples you can start with to familiarize yourself.

If you are trying to filter records by simple criteria (say, if you want all HTTP transactions from a single server that generated 404s), you can create a simple query in one of the following ways:

  • Add a filter or refine results from the left pane
  • Add a filter from the trifield
  • Add a filter directly from record results

For complex filtering, see Query records with an advanced filter.

Filtering record results from the left pane

When you click Records from the top menu, all of the available records for your selected time interval appear. You can then filter from the left pane to refine your results.



The Record Type drop-down menu displays a list of all of the record types that your ExtraHop system is configured to collect and store. A record type determines what data is collected and stored in the recordstore.

Note:Because you must write a trigger to collect records, you need a way to identify the type of data you will collect. There are built-in record types, which collect all of the available known fields for a protocol. You can start with a built-in record type (such as HTTP) and write a trigger to collect only the fields for that protocol that matter to you (such as URI and status code). Or, advanced users can create a custom record type if they need to collect proprietary information that is not available through a built-in record type.

The Group By drop-down gives you a list of fields to further filter the record type by.

The Refine Results section shows you a list of common record filters for the selected record type with the number of records that match the filter in parenthesis.

Filtering record results through the trifield

Select a field from the Any Field drop-down (such as Server), select an operator (such as the equal sign (=)), and then type a hostname. Click Add filter, and the filter is added above the filter bar.





Your results only show records that match the filter; in our example this means we only see results for transactions that are for the server named abc.

The following operators can be selected, based on the selected field name:

Operator Description
= Equals
Does not equal
Includes

If records are stored on an Explore appliance, the includes operator matches whole words delineated by spaces and punctuation. For example, a search for "www.extra" would match "www.extra.com" but not "www.extrahop.com".

For all other recordstores, the includes operator matches substrings, including spaces and punctuation. For example, a search for "www.extra" would match "www.extrahop.com", but a search for "www extra" would not match "www.extrahop.com".

Regex and wildcard characters are not supported.

≈/ Excludes

If records are stored on an Explore appliance, the excludes operator matches whole words delineated by spaces and punctuation. For example, a search for "extra" would exclude "www.extra.com" but not "www.extrahop.com".

For all other recordstores, the excludes operator matches substrings, including spaces and punctuation. For example, a search for "www.extra" would exclude "www.extrahop.com", but a search for "www extra" would not exclude "www.extrahop.com".

Regex and wildcard characters are not supported.

< Less than
Less than or equal to
> Greater than
Greater than or equal to
starts with Starts with
exists Exists
does not exit Does not exist

Filtering directly from record results

You can select any field entry displayed in either table view or verbose view in your record results and then click the pop-up operator to add the filter. Filters are displayed below the chart summary (except for the record type field, which is changed in the left pane).



Finding records in the ExtraHop system

  • Type a search term in the global search field at the top of the screen and click Search Records to start a query across all stored records.
  • From a device overview page, click Records to start a query filtered by that device.
  • From a device group overview page, click View Records to start a query filtered by that device group.
  • From a detection card, click View records to start a query filtered with the transactions associated with the detection.
  • Click the Records icon from a chart widget, as shown in the following figure.

  • Click the Records icon next to a detail metric after drilling down on a top-level metric. For example, after drilling down on HTTP Responses by Server, click the Records icon to create a query for records that contain a specific server IP address.
Last modified 2023-11-07