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Splunk Lantern

List of Azure resource network interface cards

 

As an administrator, you want to have a high-level view of the number of NICs in your Azure infrastructure, along with their source network and source virtual machine. 

Data required

Microsoft: Cloud Services network data

​​​​​Procedure

  1. Configure the Splunk Add-on for Microsoft Cloud Services.
  2. Run the following search. You can optimize it by specifying an index and adjusting the time range.
sourcetype="mscs:resource:networkInterfaceCard"
|rex field=virtual_network_id "virtualNetworks\/(?<Network>.+)" 
|rex field=vm_id "virtualMachines\/(?<vm>.+)"  
|stats count BY location, name, properties.ipConfigurations{}.properties.privateIPAddress, properties.ipConfigurations{}.properties.privateIPAllocationMethod, Network, vm 
|fields - count
|rename location AS Location name AS NIC properties.ipConfigurations{}.properties.privateIPAddress AS "Private IP" properties.ipConfigurations{}.properties.privateIPAllocationMethod AS "Allocation Method" Network AS "Source Network" vm AS "Source VM"

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

sourcetype="mscs:resource:networkInterfaceCard"

Search only Azure resource network interface card usage data. 

|rex field=virtual_network_id "virtualNetworks\/(?<Network>.+)" 

Extract the network ID from the full path name. 

|rex field=vm_id "virtualMachines\/(?<vm>.+)"  

Extract the virtual machine name from the full path name.

|stats count BY location, name, properties.ipConfigurations{}.properties.privateIPAddress,  properties.ipConfigurations{}.properties.privateIPAllocationMethod, Network, vm 

Count the number of instances for a combination of location, name, IP address, allocation method, and source network, and VM. Return one row for each distinct combination of values. 

|fields - count

Remove the count field from the results. 

|rename location AS Location name AS NIC properties.ipConfigurations{}.properties.privateIPAddress AS "Private IP" properties.ipConfigurations{}.properties.privateIPAllocationMethod AS "Allocation Method" Network AS "Source Network" vm AS "Source VM"

Rename the fields as shown for better readability.

Next steps

Sample results for this search are shown in the table below. The results show all network interface cards provisioned in the environment, including the name of the virtual machine (VM) that the NIC is contained within. This data could be the foundation for asset management data collection. Inventory and asset management tracking is considered a best practice in the ITIL framework. A search like this can be used to gather information on provisioned assets, in this case virtual networks. Asset management is critical in the cloud because it affects operation expenses, as well as security, and informs lifecycle management. 

Location NIC Private IP Allocation Method Source Network Source VM

australiasoutheast

ry-win10746

10.0.0.4

Dynamic

bots-vnet

Ry-Win10

australiasoutheast

splunk64

10.0.0.4

Dynamic

bots-vnet

Splunk

australiasoutheast

splunkhf01402

10.1.0.4

Dynamic

splunk

SPLUNKHF01

centralus

ryan726

10.0.6.4

Dynamic

ryan

Ryan

southcentralus

WVD-Win10-0-nic

10.0.1.5

Dynamic

frothly-vnet

WVD-Win10-0

You might also be interested in other processes associated with the Managing Azure cloud infrastructure use case.