Security

What is N/A in the user field?

IT_Bullgod
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

I issued this search: index="_audit" | top user limit="1000" attempting to see the users on my system. Some of the output had "n/a" in the user field. What does this mean?

Tags (1)

Stephen_Sorkin
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Splunk will record the user as "n/a" if there's no user associated with the particular log entry. An example of this is the recording of the completion of searches. This is a system wide activity and the user who invoked the search is recorded when the search started.

Similarly fschange-initiated audit entries cannot be tied to a particular user and are recorded as "n/a."

splunkettes
Path Finder

Do you know why audittrail shows "N/A" for user when a Splunk user creates a lookup file? For example, I created a lookup file testingLookupCreationAudit.csv using the outputlookup command and the logged event for it showed,

Audit:[timestamp=08-17-2020 15:02:32.078, user=n/a, action=add,path="/data/1/splunk/etc/apps/search/lookups/testingLookupCreationAudit.csv", isdir=0, size=117, gid=1001, uid=1001, modtime="Mon Aug 17 14:54:10 2020", mode="rw-------", hash=][n/a]

Why didn't Splunk log my user name in this event?

Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

.conf24 | Registration Open!

Hello, hello! I come bearing good news: Registration for .conf24 is now open!   conf is Splunk’s rad annual ...

ICYMI - Check out the latest releases of Splunk Edge Processor

Splunk is pleased to announce the latest enhancements to Splunk Edge Processor.  HEC Receiver authorization ...

Introducing the 2024 SplunkTrust!

Hello, Splunk Community! We are beyond thrilled to announce our newest group of SplunkTrust members!  The ...