Show message chain in search - splunk

I have a message thread, these messages are coming on splunk.
The chain consists of ten different messages: five messages from one system, five messages from another (backup) system.
Messages from the primary system use the same SrcMsgId value, and messages from the backup system are combined with a common SrcMsgId.
Messages from the standby system also have a Mainsys_srcMsgId value - this value is identical to the main system's SrcMsgId value.
The message chain from the backup system enters the splunk immediately after the messages from the main system.
Tell me how can I display a chain of all ten messages? Perhaps first messages from the first system (main), then from the second (backup) with the display of the time of arrival at the server.
With time, I understand, I will include _time in the request. I got a little familiar with the syntax of queries, but still I still have a lot of difficulties with creating queries.
Please help me with an example of the correct request.
Thank you in advance!

You're starting with quite a challenging query! :-)
To combine the two chains, they'll need a common field. The SrcMsgId field won't do since it can represent different message chains. What you can do is create a new common field using Mainsys_srcMsgId, if present, and SrcMsgId. Then link the messages via that field using streamstats. Finally sort by the common field to put them together. Here's an untested sample query:
index=foo
```Get Mainsys_srcMsgId, if it exists; otherwise, get SrcMsgId```
| eval joiner = coalesce(Mainsys_srcMsgId, SrcMsgId)
| streamstats count by joiner
```Find the earliest event for each chain so can sort by it later```
| eventstats min(_time) as starttime by joiner
```Order the results by time, msgId, sequence
| sort starttime joiner count
```Discard our scratch fields```
| fields - starttime joiner count

Related

Storing time intervals efficiently in redis

I am trying to track server uptimes using redis.
So the approach I have chosen is as follows:
server xyz will keep on sending my service ping indicating that it was alive and working in the last 30 seconds.
My service will store a list of all time intervals during which the server was active. This will be done by storing a list of {startTime, endTime} in redis, with key as name of the server (xyz)
Depending on a user query, I will use this list to generate server uptime metrics. Like % downtime in between times (T1, T2)
Example:
assume that the time is T currently.
at T+30, server sends a ping.
xyz:["{start:T end:T+30}"]
at T+60, server sends another ping
xyz:["{start:T end:T+30}", "{start:T+30 end:T+60}"]
and so on for all pings.
This works fine , but an issue is that over a large time period this list will get a lot of elements. To avoid this currently, on a ping, I pop the last element of the list, check if it can be merged with the latest time interval. If it can be merged, I coalesce and push a single time interval into the list. if not then 2 time intervals are pushed.
So with this my list becomes like this after step 2 : xyz:["{start:T end:T+60}"]
Some problems I see with this approach is:
the merging is being done in my service, and not redis.
incase my service is distributed, The list ordering might get corrupted due to multiple readers and writers.
Is there a more efficient/elegant way to handle this , like maybe handling merging of time intervals in redis itself ?

Find out huge log statementsusing splunk

I have an existing application where there are multiple application flows in it.
All the flows are of JMS messaging flows - where different system exchanges messages of queue.
I want to find out the huge logger statements from the log - which are like more than 10 lines or so.
What i tried - I tried using patterns tab where splunk tells us what are repetitive patterns.
I am good with repetitive patterns - but i want to find out logger statements which are huge in size.
So - is it possible to find out such log statements which are longer/bigger
thank you in advance
Splunk has a built-in field called "linecount" that should do what you want.
index=foo
| where linecount > 10
You can also find the size of an event using the len function.
index=foo
| eval size=len(_raw)
| where size > 5000
Be aware that Splunk truncates large events to 10,000 characters by default, although that setting can be changed in props.conf via TRUNCATE = <n>.

Query random but unread keys the Redis way

I have thousands of messages each stored like a list of properties (text, subject, date, etc) in a separate key: msg:1001, msg:1002 etc...
There is also a list keyed as messages with ids of all existing messages: 1001,1002,1003...
Now I need to get 10 random messages.
But, I only need those messages that are not flagged by the user (sort of unread).
There is a hash for each user keyed as flags:USERID = 1001=red,1005=blue,1010=red,...
Currently I have to keep in memory of my application a full list of messages plus all flags for all users currently logged in and do all the math by hand (in JavaScript).
Is there a way to do such a query in Redis way, with no duplicating all the data on the application end?
Your question is an example of a space–time tradeoff. On the one hand, you say that you don't want to keep a list of the unflagged messages in your system, but I would guess that you also want to keep your application relatively fast. Therefore, I suggest giving up some space and keeping a set of unflagged messages.
As messages are created in your system, add them both to messages (SADD messages <messageid>) and messages_unflagged (SADD messages_unflagged <messageid>). After a user adds a flag to a message, remove the message from the unflagged set (SREM messages_unflagged <messageid>). When you need 10 random, unflagged messages, you can get their IDs in constant time (SRANDMEMBER messages_unflagged 10).

Autoincrement in Redis

I'm starting to use Redis, and I've run into the following problem.
I have a bunch of objects, let's say Messages in my system. Each time a new User connects, I do the following:
INCR some global variable, let's say g_message_id, and save INCR's return value (the current value of g_message_id).
LPUSH the new message (including the id and the actual message) into a list.
Other clients use the value of g_message_id to check if there are any new messages to get.
Problem is, one client could INCR the g_message_id, but not have time to LPUSH the message before another client tries to read it, assuming that there is a new message.
In other words, I'm looking for a way to do the equivalent of adding rows in SQL, and having an auto-incremented index to work with.
Notes:
I can't use the list indexes, since I often have to delete parts of the list, making it invalid.
My situation in reality is a bit more complex, this is a simpler version.
Current solution:
The best solution I've come up with and what I plan to do is use WATCH and Transactions to try and perform an "autoincrement" myself.
But this is such a common use-case in Redis that I'm surprised there is not existing answer for it, so I'm worried I'm doing something wrong.
If I'm reading correctly, you are using g_message_id both as an id sequence and as a flag to indicate new message(s) are available. One option is to split this into two variables: one to assign message identifiers and the other as a flag to signal to clients that a new message is available.
Clients can then compare the current / prior value of g_new_message_flag to know when new messages are available:
> INCR g_message_id
(integer) 123
# construct the message with id=123 in code
> MULTI
OK
> INCR g_new_message_flag
QUEUED
> LPUSH g_msg_queue "{\"id\": 123, \"msg\": \"hey\"}"
QUEUED
> EXEC
Possible alternative, if your clients can support it: you might want to look into the
Redis publish/subscribe commands, e.g. cients could publish notifications of new messages and subscribe to one or more message channels to receive notifications. You could keep the g_msg_queue to maintain a backlog of N messages for new clients, if necessary.
Update based on comment: If you want each client to detect there are available messages, pop all that are available, and zero out the list, one option is to use a transaction to read the list:
# assuming the message queue contains "123", "456", "789"..
# a client detects there are new messages, then runs this:
> WATCH g_msg_queue
OK
> LRANGE g_msg_queue 0 100000
QUEUED
> DEL g_msg_queue
QUEUED
> EXEC
1) 1) "789"
2) "456"
3) "123"
2) (integer) 1
Update 2: Given the new information, here's what I would do:
Have your writer clients use RPUSH to append new messages to the list. This lets the reader clients start at 0 and iterate forward over the list to get new messages.
Readers need to only remember the index of the last message they fetched from the list.
Readers watch g_new_message_flag to know when to fetch from the list.
Each reader client will then use "LRANGE list index limit" to fetch the new messages. Suppose a reader client has seen a total of 5 messages, it would run "LRANGE g_msg_queue 5 15" to get the next 10 messages. Suppose 3 are returned, so it remembers the index 8. You can make the limit as large as you want, and can walk through the list in small batches.
The reaper client should set a WATCH on the list and delete it inside a transaction, aborting if any client is concurrently reading from it.
When a reader client tries LRANGE and gets 0 messages it can assume the list has been truncated and reset its index to 0.
Do you really need unique sequential IDs? You can use UUIDs for uniqueness and timestamps to check for new messages. If you keep the clocks on all your servers properly synchronized then timestamps with a one second resolution should work just fine.
If you really do need unique sequential IDs then you'll probably have to set up a Flickr style ticket server to properly manage the central list of IDs. This would, essentially, move your g_message_id into a database with proper transaction handling.
You can simulate auto-incrementing a unique key for new rows. Simply use DBSIZE to get the current number of rows, then in your code, increment that number by 1, and use that number as the key for the new row. It's simple and atomic.

What does the last digit in the ActiveMQ message ID represent?

I have a system that seems to be working fine, but when a certain process writes a message, I get 10 messages appear in the queue. They are all almost duplicates, but the last section of the message id is incremented.
Example:
c6743810-65e6-4bcd-b575-08174f9cae73:1:1:1
c6743810-65e6-4bcd-b575-08174f9cae73:1:1:2
c6743810-65e6-4bcd-b575-08174f9cae73:1:1:3
c6743810-65e6-4bcd-b575-08174f9cae73:1:1:4
.
.
.
What does this mean? From what I can tell, the process is only writing one message.
Nevermind, I found it... The process WAS writing multiple messages, but using the same producer and transaction. ActiveMQ seems to use this as a session ID or something of that sort. Feel free to expand on this topic if you deem it necessary.
The message id is generated to be globally unique - and consists of a combination of a your host, a unique MessageProducer Id and an incrementing sequence for each message