Wazuh indexer indices

Creating custom index pattern

This section describes how to create a custom index pattern, for example, my-custom-alerts-*, alongside the default pattern, wazuh-alerts-*. Switch to the root user and perform the steps below.

1. Stop the Filebeat service:

   # systemctl stop filebeat
   

2. Download the Wazuh template and save it into a file (for example, template.json):

   # curl -so template.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wazuh/wazuh/v4.9.1/extensions/elasticsearch/7.x/wazuh-template.json
   

3. Open the template file and locate this line at the beginning of the file:

   "index_patterns": [
     "wazuh-alerts-4.x-*",
     "wazuh-archives-4.x-*"
   ],
   

   Add your custom pattern to look like this:

   "index_patterns": [
     "wazuh-alerts-4.x-*",
     "wazuh-archives-4.x-*",
     "my-custom-alerts-*"
   ],
   

   The asterisk character (*) on the index patterns is important because Filebeat will create indices using a name that follows this pattern, which is necessary to apply the proper format to visualize the alerts on the Wazuh dashboard.

4. Save the modifications and insert the new template into the Wazuh indexer. This will replace the existing template:

   # curl -XPUT -k -u <INDEXER_USERNAME>:<INDEXER_PASSWORD> 'https://<INDEXER_IP_ADDRESS>:9200/_template/wazuh' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d @template.json
   

   Replace:

   • <INDEXER_IP_ADDRESS> with the IP address of your Wazuh indexer

   • <INDEXER_USERNAME> and <INDEXER_PASSWORD> with the Wazuh indexer username and password. You can obtain the Wazuh indexer credentials for fresh deployments using the command:

   Note

   If using the Wazuh OVA, use the default credentials admin:admin or refer to the password management section.

   # tar -axf wazuh-install-files.tar wazuh-install-files/wazuh-passwords.txt -O | grep -P "\'admin\'" -A 1
   

   {"acknowledged":true}
   

   Note

   {"acknowledged":true} indicates that the template was inserted correctly.

   Warning

   Perform step 5 only if you want to replace the default alert index pattern wazuh-alerts-* and/or the default archive index pattern wazuh‑archives-* with my-custom-alerts-*.

5. Open the Wazuh alerts configuration file /usr/share/filebeat/module/wazuh/alerts/manifest.yml and optionally the archives file /usr/share/filebeat/module/wazuh/archives/manifest.yml and replace the index name.

   For example, from:

   - name: index_prefix
     default: wazuh-alerts-
   

   To this:

   - name: index_prefix
     default: my-custom-alerts-
   

   Note

   The index name must not contain the characters #, \, /, *, ?, ", <, >, |, ,, and must not start with _, -, or +. Also, all the letters must be lowercase.

6. (Optional) If you want to use the new index pattern by default, open the /usr/share/wazuh-dashboard/data/wazuh/config/wazuh.yml file and add the below configuration:

   pattern: my-custom-alerts-*
   

   This will make the Wazuh server automatically create and/or select the new index pattern.

7. Restart Filebeat and the Wazuh server components:

   # systemctl restart filebeat
   # systemctl restart wazuh-manager
   # systemctl restart wazuh-indexer
   # systemctl restart wazuh-dashboard
   

Checking indices information

You can check for information about Wazuh indices in two ways.

• Using the web user interface.

• Making a request to the Wazuh indexer API.

The wazuh‑alerts-* indices

The Wazuh server analyzes events received from monitored endpoints and generates alerts when the events match a detection rule. These alerts are saved using the wazuh-alerts-* indices.

The Wazuh server logs the alert data into the /var/ossec/logs/alerts/alerts.json and /var/ossec/logs/alerts/alerts.log files by default. Once saved in the /var/ossec/logs/alerts/alerts.json file, it forwards the JSON alert document to the Wazuh indexer API for indexing. The indexed files are stored in the /var/lib/wazuh-indexer/nodes/0/indices directory of the Wazuh indexer.

When forwarding alerts to the Wazuh indexer, the Wazuh server formats the current date into an index name. For example, the Wazuh server will define the index names wazuh-alerts-4.x-2023.03.17 and wazuh-alerts-4.x-2023.03.18 for March 17th and 18th alerts, respectively. The Wazuh indexer then creates alert indices using the defined wazuh‑alerts-* index names.

You can modify the default index name in the /usr/share/filebeat/module/wazuh/alerts/ingest/pipeline.json file of the Wazuh server. To do this, navigate to the date_index_name field and date_rounding key to change the default index name formatting in the /usr/share/filebeat/module/wazuh/alerts/ingest/pipeline.json file:

{
  "description": "Wazuh alerts pipeline",
  "processors": [
     { "json" : { "field" : "message", "add_to_root": true } },
     {
     "geoip": {
     "field": "data.srcip",
     "target_field": "GeoLocation",
     "properties": ["city_name", "country_name", "region_name", "location"],
     "ignore_missing": true,
     "ignore_failure": true
     }
     },
     {
     "geoip": {
     "field": "data.win.eventdata.ipAddress",
     "target_field": "GeoLocation",
     "properties": ["city_name", "country_name", "region_name", "location"],
     "ignore_missing": true,
     "ignore_failure": true
     }
     },
     {
     "geoip": {
     "field": "data.aws.sourceIPAddress",
     "target_field": "GeoLocation",
     "properties": ["city_name", "country_name", "region_name", "location"],
     "ignore_missing": true,
     "ignore_failure": true
     }
     },
     {
     "geoip": {
     "field": "data.gcp.jsonPayload.sourceIP",
     "target_field": "GeoLocation",
     "properties": ["city_name", "country_name", "region_name", "location"],
     "ignore_missing": true,
     "ignore_failure": true
     }
     },
     {
     "geoip": {
     "field": "data.office365.ClientIP",
     "target_field": "GeoLocation",
     "properties": ["city_name", "country_name", "region_name", "location"],
     "ignore_missing": true,
     "ignore_failure": true
     }
     },
     {
     "date": {
     "field": "timestamp",
     "target_field": "@timestamp",
     "formats": ["ISO8601"],
     "ignore_failure": false
     }
     },
     {
     "date_index_name": {
     "field": "timestamp",
     "date_rounding": "d",
     "index_name_prefix": "{{fields.index_prefix}}",
     "index_name_format": "yyyy.MM.dd",
     "ignore_failure": false
     }
     },
     { "remove": { "field": "message", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "ecs", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "beat", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "input_type", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "tags", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "count", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "@version", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "log", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "offset", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "type", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "host", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "fields", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "event", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "fileset", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } },
     { "remove": { "field": "service", "ignore_missing": true, "ignore_failure": true } }
  ],
  "on_failure" : [{
     "drop" : { }
  }]
}

Where the values:

The wazuh‑archives-* indices

In addition to logging alerts to the /var/ossec/logs/alerts/alerts.json and /var/ossec/logs/alerts/alerts.log files, you can enable the Wazuh archives to log and index all the events the Wazuh server receives. This includes events that are analyzed by Wazuh and events that do not trigger alerts.

Storing and indexing all events might be useful for later analysis and compliance requirements. However, you must consider that enabling logging and indexing of all events will increase the storage requirement on the Wazuh server.

By default, the Wazuh indexer creates event indices for each unique day. You can modify the default index name in the /usr/share/filebeat/module/wazuh/archives/ingest/pipeline.json file of the Wazuh server. To do this:

1. Navigate to the date_index_name field.

2. Locate the date_rounding key and change the default index name formatting in the /usr/share/filebeat/module/wazuh/archives/ingest/pipeline.json file.

The sections below provide details on how to enable the wazuh archives and set up the wazuh-archives-* indices.

The wazuh-monitoring-* indices

The connection status of an enrolled Wazuh agent at any moment is one of the following:

• Active

• Disconnected

• Pending

• Never connected

Wazuh stores a history of the connection status of all its agents. By default, it indexes the agent connection status using the wazuh‑monitoring-* indices. The Wazuh indexer creates one of these indices per week by default. Check the documentation on custom creation intervals. These indices store the connection status of all the agents every 15 minutes by default. Check the documentation on the frequency of API requests.

The Wazuh dashboard requires these indices to display information about agent status. For example, by clicking ☰ > Server management > Endpoints Summary, you can see information such as the Wazuh agent's connection status and historical evolution within set timeframes.

In the Wazuh dashboard configuration file, you can change the settings to do the following:

• Disable inserting and showing connection status data for the agents. Change wazuh.monitoring.enabled to accomplish this.

• Change the insertion frequency of connection status data for the agents. Change wazuh.monitoring.frequency to accomplish this.

The wazuh‑statistics-* indices

The Wazuh dashboard uses the wazuh‑statistics-* indices to display statistics about the Wazuh server usage and performance. The information displayed includes the number of events decoded, bytes received, and TCP sessions.

The Wazuh dashboard runs requests to the Wazuh manager API to query usage-related information. It inserts data into the wazuh‑statistics-* indices from the information collected. The Wazuh indexer creates a wazuh‑statistics-* index per week by default. Check the documentation on the Statistics creation interval. These indices store Wazuh server statistics every 5 minutes by default. Check the documentation on the Frequency of task execution.

To visualize this information in the Wazuh dashboard, go to Server management > Statistics.

The wazuh-states-vulnerabilities-* indices

The index pattern wazuh-states-vulnerabilities-* is used in Wazuh for storing data related to the vulnerability state of monitored assets. This index typically contains information about vulnerabilities detected in the systems being monitored, including details such as the severity, status, affected software, and vulnerability reference. The * at the end of the index pattern allows for the creation of multiple indices with similar names, segmented by time or other factors. This enables efficient storage and retrieval of vulnerability data over time.

To visualize this information in the Wazuh dashboard, click on Vulnerability Detection from the Wazuh dashboard home page.