NOTE: This feature is available only if auditing and content indexing was requested for the connection.

For more information, see Configuring the internal indexer.

You can search in the contents of the audit trails as follows:

  • From your browser: Use this method to find all the sessions containing your search query.

    Enter the screen.content: expression search query in the Search query field. For example: screen.content="exit". The search returns all the sessions where exit was on the screen.

  • From the Safeguard Desktop Player application: Use this method to find the exact location of the search query within a specific audit trail.

    Download the relevant audit trail, open it in the Safeguard Desktop Player application, and use the Search feature. You can also search in the contents of the audit trails for trails of graphical sessions created and indexed with One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) 6.0.

There are various ways you can refine your content query, you can:

  • use wildcards

  • use boolean expressions

  • search in the commands of terminal connections (for example, command:"sudo su")

  • search in the window titles of graphical connections (for example, title:settings)

Search query examples

The following sections provide examples for different search queries.

For details on how to use more complex keyphrases that are not covered in this guide, see the Apache Lucene documentation.

Searching for exact matches

By default, One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) searches for keywords as whole words and returns only exact matches. Note that if your search keywords include special characters, you must escape them with a backslash (\) character. For details on special characters, see Searching for special characters. The following characters are special characters: + - & | ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \ /

Example: Searching for exact matches
Search expression example
Matches example
Does not match

examples

example.com

query-by-example

exam

To search for a string that includes a backslash characters, for example, a Windows path, use two backslashes (\\).

Search expression C\:\\Windows
Search expression on the REST API C%5C%3A%5C%5CWindows
Matches

C:\Windows

Combining search keywords

You can use boolean operators – AND, OR, NOT, and + (required), – to combine search keywords. More complex search expressions can also be constructed with parentheses. If you enter multiple keywords,

Example: Combining keywords in search
Search expression keyword1 AND keyword2
Search expression on the REST API keyword1%20AND%20keyword2
Matches (returns hits that contain both keywords)
Search expression keyword1 OR keyword2
Search expression on the REST API keyword1%20OR%20keyword2
Matches (returns hits that contain at least one of the keywords)
Search expression keyword1 NOT keyword2
Search expression on the REST API %22keyword1%20keyword2%22%20NOT%20%22keyword2%20keyword3%22
Matches (returns hits that contain the first phrase, but not the second)
Search expression +keyword1 keyword2
Search expression on the REST API %2Bkeyword1%20keyword2
Matches (returns hits that contain keyword1, and may contain keyword2)

To search for expressions that can be interpreted as boolean operators (for example: AND), use the following format: "AND".

Example: Using parentheses in search

Use parentheses to create more complex search expressions:

Search expression (keyword1 OR keyword2) AND keyword3
Search expression on the REST API %28keyword1%20OR%20keyword2%29%20AND%20keyword3
Matches (returns hits that contain either keyword1 and keyword3, or keyword2 and keyword3)
Using wildcard searches

You can use the ? and * wildcards in your search expressions.

Example: Using wildcard ? in search

The ? (question mark) wildcard means exactly one arbitrary character. Note that it does not work for finding non-UTF-8 or multibyte characters. If you want to search for these characters, the expression ?? might work, or you can use the * wildcard instead.

You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.

Search expression example?
Search expression on the REST API example%3F
Matches

example1

examples

example?

Does not match

example.com

example12

query-by-example

Search expression example??
Search expression on the REST API example%3F%3F
Matches

example12

Does not match

example.com

example1

query-by-example

Example: Using wildcard * in search

The * wildcard means 0 or more arbitrary characters. It finds non-UTF-8 and multibyte characters as well.

Search expression example*
Search expression on the REST API example%2A
Matches

example

examples

example.com

Does not match

query-by-example

example*

Example: Using combined wildcards in search

Wildcard characters can be combined.

Search expression ex?mple*
Search expression on the REST API ex%3Fmple%2A
Matches

example1

examples

example.com

exemple.com

example12

Does not match

exmples

query-by-example

Searching for special characters

To search for the special characters, for example, question mark (?), asterisk (*), backslash (\) or whitespace ( ) characters, you must prefix these characters with a backslash (\). Any character after a backslash is handled as character to be searched for. The following characters are special characters: + - & | ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \ /

Example: Searching for special characters

To search for a special character, use a backslash (\).

Search expression example\?
Search expression on the REST API example%5C%3F
Matches

example?

Does not match

examples

example1

To search for a string that includes a backslash characters, for example, a Windows path, use two backslashes (\\).

Search expression C\:\\Windows
Search expression on the REST API C%5C%3A%5C%5CWindows
Matches

C:\Windows

To search for a string that includes a slash character, for example, a UNIX path, you must escape the every slash with a backslash (\/).

Search expression \/var\/log\/messages
Search expression on the REST API %5C%2Fvar%5C%2Flog%5C%2Fmessages
Matches

/var/log/messages

Search expression \(1\+1\)\:2
Search expression on the REST API %5C%281%5C%2B1%5C%29%5C%3A2
Matches

(1+1):2

Searching in commands and window titles

For terminal connections, use the command: prefix to search only in the commands (excluding screen content). For graphical connections, use the title: prefix to search only in the window titles (excluding screen content). To exclude search results that are commands or window titles, use the following format: keyword AND NOT title:[* TO *].

You can also combine these search queries with other expressions and wildcards, for example, title:properties AND gateway.

Example: Searching in commands and window titles
Search expression command:sudo su
Search expression on the REST API command%3A%22sudo+su%22
Matches

sudo su as a terminal command

Does not match sudo su in general screen content
Search expression title:settings
Search expression on the REST API title%3Asettings
Matches

settings appearing in the title of an active window

Does not match settings in general screen content

To find an expression in the screen content and exclude search results from the commands or window titles, see the following example.

Search expression properties AND NOT title:[* TO *]
Search expression on the REST API properties%20AND%20NOT%20title%3A%5B%2A%20TO%20%2A%5D
Matches

properties appearing in the screen content, but not as a window title.

Does not match properties in window titles.

You can also combine these search filters with other expressions and wildcards.

Search expression title:properties AND gateway
Search expression on the REST API title%3Aproperties%20AND%20gateway
Matches

A screen where properties appears in the window title, and gateway in the screen content (or as part of the window title).

Does not match

Screens where both properties and gateway appear, but properties is not in the window title.

Searching for fuzzy matches

Fuzzy search uses the tilde ~ symbol at the end of a single keyword to find hits that contain words with similar spelling to the keyword.

Example: Searching for fuzzy matches
Search expression roam~
Search expression on the REST API roam%7E
Matches

roams

foam

Proximity search

Proximity search uses the tilde ~ symbol at the end of a phrase to find keywords from the phrase that are within the specified distance from each other.

Example: Proximity search
Search expression keyword1 keyword2 ~10
Search expression on the REST API %22keyword1%20keyword2%22%7E10
Matches (returns hits that contain keyword1 and keyword2 within 10 words from each other)
Adjusting the relevance of search terms

By default, every keyword or phrase of a search expression is treated as equal. Use the caret ^ symbol to make a keyword or expression more important than the others.

Example: Adjusting the relevance of search terms
Search expression keyword1^4 keyword2
Search expression on the REST API keyword1%5E4%20keyword2
Matches (returns hits that contain keyword1 and keyword2, but keyword1 is 4-times more relevant)
Search expression keyword1^5 keyword2
Search expression on the REST API %22keyword1%20keyword2%22%5E5%20%22keyword3%20keyword4%22
Matches (returns hits that contain keyword1 and keyword2, but keyword1 is 5-times more relevant)