Expected Windows process not running
Many critical IT applications and services running on Windows operating systems run as a process. You want to detect when an expected process is not found in the process list on the host so you can proactively manage potential stability issues.
Data required
- Microsoft: Windows event and update logs
Procedure
- In Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Cloud Platform, verify that you deployed the Splunk Add-on for Microsoft Windows add-on to your search heads, indexer, and universal forwarders on the monitored systems. For more information, see About installing Splunk add-ons.
- Run the following search. You can optimize it by specifying an index and adjusting the time range.
| mstats count WHERE index="<name of Windows metrics index>" AND metric_name=Process.* host="<name of host to check>" BY host, instance span=15m | rename instance AS process | eval expected_process_list=mvappend("<name of process to check>", "<name of process to check>") | eval expected_process_count="<total number of processes expected per host>" | eval expected_process_regex="(?i)".mvjoin(expected_process_list, "|") | eval expected_process_found=if(match(process, expected_process_regex),1,0) | stats values(expected_process_list) AS expected_processes values(expected_process_count) AS expected_process_count values(eval(if(expected_process_found>0,process,null()))) AS processes_found sum(expected_process_found) AS processes_found_count BY _time host | eval count_of_missing_processes=expected_process_count - processes_found_count | dedup host | rename expected_processes AS "Expected Processes", expected_process_count AS "# of Expected Processes per Host", processes_found_count AS "# of Expected Processes" processes_found AS "Expected Processes Found on Host", processes_found_count AS "# of Expected Process Found on Host", count_of_missing_processes AS "Expected Processes Missing"
Search explanation
The table provides an explanation of what each part of this search achieves. You can adjust this query based on the specifics of your environment.
Splunk Search | Explanation |
---|---|
| mstats count WHERE index="<name of Windows metrics index>" AND metric_name=Process.* host="< name of host to check>" BY host, instance span=15m |
Search metrics indexes where perfmon process data is being collected and filter down to the desired hosts to check. |
| rename instance AS process |
Rename the field as shown for better readability. |
|
Capture the list of expected processes to check and the total expected process count per host. Add as many processes as you need. You can use regex syntax here. |
|
Convert the expected process list into a regex expression, searching over each process for each host looking for matching processes. |
| stats values(expected_process_list) AS expected_processes values(expected_process_count) AS expected_process_count |
Compute the number of matching processes per host over time. |
| eval count_of_missing_processes=expected_process_count - processes_found_count |
Return the total number of expected processes which are not currently running on the host. |
| dedup host |
Remove duplicate hosts. |
| rename expected_processes AS "Expected Processes", expected_process_count AS "# of Expected Processes per Host", processes_found_count AS "# of Expected Processes" |
Rename the fields as shown for better readability. |
Next steps
The expected processes missing field indicates the total number of processes expected but missing from the most recent host process data. Any positive number indicates one or more expected processes missing. Zero indicates the number of running processes matches what is expected. A negative number indicates that a higher number of processes were found than expected.
To alert when an expected Windows process is not running, you can configure one of the following two recommendations:
- Use the SPL from this procedure to configure a Splunk platformalert.
- Build a new vital metric in IT Essentials Work for the desired entity type and configure vital metric alerting. After the vital metric has been created, configure it to alert when the number of expected processes not running is greater than zero.
Finally, you might be interested in other processes associated with the Maintaining Microsoft Windows systems use case.