SPLK-1002 Transactions and Event Correlation Practice Question
A Splunk administrator at a company with 500 employees needs to correlate VPN login events with subsequent network access logs to track user sessions. The VPN logs contain fields: user, src_ip, timestamp, event_type (login or logout). The network logs contain fields: user, dst_ip, timestamp, action (allow or deny). Both logs are indexed daily. The administrator wants to create a search that groups each VPN login with all network access events from that user within the next 8 hours. However, the current search using `transaction user startswith="login" endswith="logout" maxspan=8h` is returning many incomplete transactions where the logout event is missing. What is the most efficient way to improve the correlation without missing sessions?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use `transaction user startswith="login" endswith="logout" maxspan=8h keepevicted=true`.
Adding keepevicted=true to the transaction command causes Splunk to output incomplete transactions (those missing the logout event) as evicted transactions. This allows the analyst to see all sessions, including those where the logout was not recorded, preventing missing data. Option A uses stats with time buckets, which does not properly group events into sessions. Option B removes startswith and endswith, so it would group all events of the same user within 8 hours, potentially merging separate sessions inaccurately. Option D uses maxevents=100, which may still drop sessions if they have many events, and manual filtering is inefficient.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use a different approach: `... | stats values(*) as * by user, time_bucket | ...` with bucket times.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: stats does not preserve event sequence or properly group sessions.
- ✗
Change to `transaction user maxspan=8h` and remove startswith/endswith.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: Removing boundaries would group all events of that user within 8h, merging sessions and losing login/logout context.
- ✓
Use `transaction user startswith="login" endswith="logout" maxspan=8h keepevicted=true`.
Why this is correct
Correct: keepevicted=true outputs incomplete transactions, including those missing logout.
- ✗
Use `transaction user maxspan=8h maxevents=100` and filter manually.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: maxevents=100 doesn't solve missing logout; incomplete sessions still not captured.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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