NetForest  – Settings

This section is used to perform some configuration of various sections of NetForest. User can configure the following sections using the Settings section.

  • Index Patterns
  • Saved Objects
  • Advance Settings
  • Dashboard Menu

The description of each section is provided in the subsequent topics.

Index Patterns

In this section, user can add an index pattern, configure the index pattern, and so on. To do this, click the Index Pattern button on the Settings page. The Index Patterns window is displayed.

This page lists the available index pattern at the left. It contains every field in the available indexes and the field’s associated core type as recorded by NetForest Database. While this list allows a user to view the core type of each field, changing field types must be done using NetForest Database Mapping API.

Adding an Index Pattern

To add an index pattern, click the Add New button, a section to configure the index pattern is displayed.

To use NetForest, a user must configure at least one index pattern. Index patterns are used to identify the NetForest Database index to run search and analytics against. They are also used to configure fields.

If the index contains time-based events, select the Index contains time-based events check box. Specify the index name (such as test_qa_mob*), index pattern (such as test_qa_mob*), and environment name (such as prod). For example, the pattern test_qa_mob * matches all indices whose names start with test_qa_mob, such as test_qa_mob -1 and test_qa_mob -2.

Click the Create button to create the index pattern. This creates an index pattern and listed at the left.

User can update the fields using the edit icon  at the right. Update the details and click the Update Field button.

In the same manner, user can update other fields of a newly added index pattern or an existing index pattern. User can also configure the scripted fields using the Scripted fields tab. A new section is displayed where user is required to provide some inputs regarding the scripted fields, such as name, language, type, and so on. These scripted fields are computed on the fly from the data. They can be used in visualizations and displayed in documents, however they cannot be searched. A user can manage them here and add new ones.

Sample Index Patterns

Below are a couple of samples of index patterns and their usage:

  1. netforest_monitoring*

When this index pattern is configured, a user can go to the Search menu on the left pane and select it from the list of indices. The user can check the details (such as user login, query search by user, query response time, and others) in the report that is generated.

  1. perfrequest

Similarly, when this index pattern is configured, a user can go to the Search menu on the left pane and select it from the list of indices. The user can check the details (such as CPU info, RAM info, HDD info, and others) in the report that is generated.

Saved Objects

Using this section, a user can delete saved objects, such as saved searches, dashboards, and visualizations. User can also edit the raw data of saved objects. Typically, objects are only modified via their associated application, which is probably what user should use instead of this screen. Each tab is limited to 100 results. A user can use the filter to find objects not in the default list. User can export/import the objects using the Export Everything/Import button respectively.

Note: When a user imports more than one visualizations / dashboards / searches with the same name that already exists, it prompts to overwrite the data.

Here, example from the dashboard section is considered. To delete a saved object, select the object and click the Delete button. The object gets deleted from the system.

To edit a particular saved object, select the object and click the edit icon . The object is displayed in edit mode. User can save the updated object by clicking the Save Dashboard Object at the bottom of the window.

To view the Dashboard, click the View Dashboard icon . The Dashboard is displayed.

Advance Settings

This section is for advance users only. Here, user can perform some advanced level configuration. Tweaks made here can break large portions of NetForest. Some of these settings may be undocumented, unsupported or experimental. If a field has a default value, blanking the field will reset it to its default which may be unacceptable given other configuration directives. Deleting a custom setting will permanently remove it from NetForest’s config.

This window displays name of the attribute and its value. User can update the settings using the Edit icon  within the Actions field.

Request From UI to Handle Temporary Index Mechanism

To get the data using temporary index mechanism, there is a configuration setting.

  1. To find the location of the configuration, go to Settings > Advanced Settings.

2. Scroll down to the pipetempindex section.

3. The default value of the pipetempindex field is false to use the previous mechanism. To use the current/temporary index mechanism, change the pipetempindex field value to true.

4. To change the pipetempindex field value to true, click the Edit icon next to the pipetempindex field.

5. A check box opens, select the check box and click the Save icon.

6. Clicking Save changes the pipetempindex field value to true.

7. After changing the pipetempindex to true, the same is added in the request from UI to NetForest Database (NFDB) and NFDB handles the request.

Request From UI to Set Dashboard Panel Search

To set the dashboard panel request type, there is a configuration setting.

  1. In Advanced Settings, scroll down to the panelSearch section.

2. The default value of the panelSearch field is multiple. Click the Edit icon to change the value to single, and then click the Save icon.

Request From UI to Hyperlink the Extracted Fields

A user can hyperlink the extracted fields in the search source. To do this, there is a configuration setting.

  1. In Advanced Settings, scroll down to the sourceHyperLinkFields section.

The default value of the sourceHyperLinkFields field is ‘flowPathLink’. Click the Edit icon  to change the value, and then click the Save icon . The user can provide multiple values separated with a comma.

Request From UI to Set Parallel Request Limit

A user can load only those charts, which are visible in Dashboard for the first time without scrolling down.

For example, if any dashboard contains 20 charts and for the first time, when the user loads that dashboard, only four charts are visible without scrolling down. Then, request for only those four charts are sent to NFDB. Rest of the charts get loaded after those four charts are loaded successfully.

To do this, there is a configuration setting.

  1. In Advanced Settings, scroll down to the parallelRequestLimit section.

2. The default value of parallelRequestLimit field is 6. Click the Edit icon  to change the value, and then click the Save icon .

Dashboard Menu

Using this section, user can configure the dashboard menu, sub-menu, along with the dashboard name. To perform this, click the Dashboard Menu tab at the top, the corresponding section is displayed.

Steps to create a Dashboard menu

  1. First, select what is required to be configured – a menu or a dashboard. Here, first we are creating a menu and inside that menu, we are configuring a dashboard.
  2. For menu creation, select type as Menu, specify the menu name, and click The menu gets created (for example NF Dashboard).

  1. To create a dashboard inside this menu (NF Dashboard), click the  icon first, then select type as Dashboard, select the dashboard from the dashboard list and click Add. The dashboard gets added within the menu.

4. Click the Save button to save the configuration. User can add more than one menu or sub menu using this approach and can add dashboard at any level.

5. This structure can be viewed by clicking the Dashboard menu at the left and then clicking the Dashboards button at the top.