Full Search - Help

Help for this subject
Search Parameters
  Expressions
  Table of Search Fields
  Field Types
Search Results
  Default Display
  Display Options
  Display Associations
  CSV Format
  Search Limits and Performance
Gotchas and Oddities

Other Help Topics
General NetDB Help

Search Parameters

Expressions

Below is a list of wildcards, separators, boolean operators, etc that are supported in search values:

  1. Wildcards
    • * and % are multi-character wildcards
    • ? and _ are single character wildcards
    • [ ] indicates a range of characters.
    • [^] indicates NOT in a range of characters
    • For example, [a-c]? means all words beginning with a, b or c followed by just one character. "am" or "be" would match.
  2. Separators
    • separators are spaces and carriage returns
    • trailing and leading spaces are stripped off unless quoted
  3. Quotes: first double quote must be preceded by separator or beginning of line
  4. Boolean Operators- listed in order of precedence
    • NOT operators: "NOT" , "not". If there is no preceding operator, AND is implied (i.e., "A not B" is equivalent to "A and not B")
    • AND operators: "AND", "and"
    • OR operators: "OR", "or"
  5. Case- all fields are case-insensitive

Table of Search Fields

Below is a table showing the fields on the full search pages. The first column lists the field name. The second column, field type, describes how to search for the information. The field types are described in detail below. The third column, Node, is checked if that field is in the Node Full Search. The fourth column, User, is checked if that field is in User Full Search. To see explanations of what each field means (not what the field type is), please see the help pages for Node and User.

Field Name Field Type Node User
Name text x x
Alias text x  
MX text x  
Node Type checkbox x  
IP address address x  
IP Address Status radio x  
Hardware Address address x  
DHCP radio x  
DHCP Options label x  
Roaming radio x  
Groups substring x x
Department substring x x
Location substring x  
Room text x  
Expiration Date date x  
make/model text x  
os text x  
Administrators text x  
Node User text x  
Custom Fields label x  
Comments substring x x
       
Active User radio   x
Last Login date   x
LNA radio   x
Networking Consultant text   x
       
All Groups radio   x
Record Type Access checkbox    
All Record Types radio   x
       
Created By text x x
Created when date x x
Modified by text x x
Modified when date x x
       
Phone not searchable   x
Email not searchable   x
Default Domain not searchable   x
Default Address Space not searchable   x
Default Group not searchable   x

Field Types

  • Radio button
    With radio buttons, one and only one selection must be made. Radio buttons are used for simple fields where one and only one choice must be made (DHCP, Roaming, Active, etc).
  • Checkbox
    Checkboxes are used when a field can be none, one or more values from a short list.
  • Text fields
    The text input field allows all the search expressions listed above. Note that Name fields (Node Name, Alias, MX) assume that the search is across all domains unless explicitly indicated.
  • Substring fields
    Substring fields allow all the search expressions listed above but also searches on substrings. For example, if "eng" is entered, the search acts as if "*eng*" were entered. So "Mechanical Engineering" and "Electrical Eng" would match. Substrings are generally used for fields like Department and Location where the names can be quite long and may be abbreviated in some way.
  • Date fields
    Dates must be entered in the following allowed formats. Wildcards are not allowed. For 2 digit years, the rollover year is 50. In other words, years '00 to '49 actually mean years 2000 to 2049. Years '40 to '99 are assumed to mean years 1940 to 1999.
    • m/d/yyyy, m/dd/yyyy, mm/d/yyyy, mm/dd/yyyy
    • m-d-yyyy, m-dd-yyyy, mm-d-yyyy, mm-dd-yyyy
    • m/d/yy, m/dd/yy, mm/d/yy, mm/dd/yy
    • m-d-yy, m-dd-yy, mm-d-yy, mm-dd-yy
  • Address fields (IP and Hardware)
    IP Addresses can be searched in two ways- by Address Space or by IP Address. On the Node search page, searching by IP Address Space will result in all the Nodes with IP addresses in the specified Address space. Boolean operators AND and NOT are not supported. Separate search expressions with the operator OR.
    • IP Address Space Input Format
      • w.x.y.z/n - existing address space with prefix (171.64.20.0/24)
      • w.x.y/n - existing address space without trailing zeroes (171.64.20/24)
      • w.x.y.z - existing address space without prefix (171.64.20.0)
      • w.x.y.* - existing address space with trailing zeroes replaced by "*" (171.64.20.*)
    • IP Address Input Format
      • x.y.y.y format.
      • x must be fully defined (171 or 172 or 128).
      • y can be a number or wildcard. If a wildcard, subsequent octets do not need to be listed. Ex. 171.64.2*
      • The wildcards listed under search expressions are allowed.

    Hardware Addresses can be searched with any of the above wildcards listed under Search Expressions. Punctuation and case are ignored. For example, hardware addresses may be shown as ABCD.1234.5678 or abcd12:345678. Either format is fine.

  • Label Fields
    The two label fields are DHCP Options and Custom Fields. Searches should be in the following format:
    • <label or option%gt;=<value> For example, if the DHCP option is "filename" and the value is "boot.txt", enter filename=boot.txt or "filename=boot.txt".
    • All the search expressions are supported.
    • If either label or value has a space in it, quote the entire expression. For example, if the custom tag is "monitor type" and the value is "viewsonic 15", search by quoting the entire string "monitor type=viewsonic 15"

Search Results

Default display (Node, User)

By default, the following fields are displayed in the search results.
    Node Default Display Fields
  1. Node Name
  2. Node Alias
  3. IP Address
  4. Hardware Address

    User Default Display Fields
  1. User Name
  2. Department
  3. Phone
  4. Email

Also, by default, the display is Formatted which is easier to read than plain.

Display Options

The default column order is the order of the fields on the Search page. The Record Name (Node or User) is always the first column. The next 3 columns can be ustomized by selecting from the dropdown menu to the right of the fields. Selections "1", "2" and "3" always have precedence over "Yes".

"Yes" display this column in the default order
"-" do not display this column
"1" display this column right after the Name column
"2" display this column 2 columns after the Name column
"3" display this column 3 columns after the Name column

Display Associations

Certain fields are associated with other fields. For example, each department has a network consultant associated with it. For a clear display, it is usually important to show the field and any fields it is associated with. For example, each department has a network consultant associated with it. If a User is the LNA for several departments and you set the display to show network consultant but not department, the results may not make intuitive sense.

Node Associations
Field Depends On
Alias, MX Node Name
Hardware Address,DHCP, Roam, DHCP Options, Interface Name Interface
Active Address, IP Address Name IP Address

User Associations
Field Depends On
Network Consultant Department

CSV (Comma Separated Value) format

For easy import into a spreadsheet, search results can be displayed in CSV format by selecting "Generate result in CSV form " at the bottom of the search results page. Unlike the search page, where each record may have multiple lines if fields have multiple values, the CSV format has only one line per record. Each field is separated by commas. If a field has multiple values, these are separated by the pipe symbol "|".

Search Limits and Performance

Because of performance issues, a user can only submit one full search at a time. Even if the user submits another full search from another machine, the previous search will be cancelled. Also, for quickest results, use as few search parameters as possible and display as few fields as possible.

Also, the maximum number of Node records that will be returned is limited, depending on the number of fields to be displayed. Note that the Node interface number adds an extra column.

# of Display Fields Max # of Node Records
< 7 7500
7-12 3000
13-15 1000
> 15 500

Gotchas and Oddities

  • Currently cannot search for IP Address Name or Interface Address Name.
  • Cannot sort Node search results by IP address. Search using Quicksearch by IP address to get a list sorted by IP address.
  • If the user is searching on an old machine with limited memory (<32MB), large search results can cause the browser to crash. To lower the probability of this, select "Plain" display at the top of the Search form.


 
© 2000 Stanford University. All Rights Reserved.
Last modified November 15, 2000