Splunk Index Earliest and Index Latest
By Jay Young, Senior Splunk Consultant
In Splunk, _index_earliest and _index_latest are two special time-based SPL and SPL2 search constraints that help you specify a time range based on indexed time and not event time for your search within a specific index. These constraints are useful for limiting the scope of your search to a specific a time and improving the efficiency of your searches. They also help find events they may have been indexed with incorrect event time stamps.
_index_earliest
The _index_earliest constraint specifies the earliest time that your search should begin when searching within a specific index.
You can think of it as setting the starting point in time for your search within the specified index.
This constraint is particularly useful when you want to focus on a specific time range within an index, allowing you to exclude data that’s outside that range.
_index_latest
The _index_latest constraint specifies the latest time that your search should end when searching within a specific index.
It sets the ending point in time for your search within the specified index.
Like _index_earliest, _index_latest helps you narrow down your search to a specific time frame, excluding data that falls outside of it.
Reference materials can be found on the Splunk SPL Search Manual
Example 1
Suppose you have an index called “web_logs” and you want to search for events between 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM on a specific day.
index=web_logs source=”/var/log/access.log” | search
_index_earliest=”10:00:00″ _index_latest=”11:00:00″
Example 2
To search for events in the “security” index that occurred between October 1, 2023, and October 15, 2023, you can use the constraints like this:
index=security | search _index_earliest=”10/01/2023:00:00:00″
_index_latest=”10/15/2023:23:59:59″
Example 3
You can also use relative time expressions. For instance, to search for events within the last 24 hours in the “application” index:
index=application | search _index_earliest=-24h _index_latest=now
Conclusion
These examples demonstrate how to use _index_earliest and _index_latest to specify time ranges when searching within specific indexes in Splunk. This can help you focus on relevant data and improve efficiency and find events that may have been ingested with an event timestamp that was out of the normal date and time range.