Navigate View
The Navigate view ( Investigate > Navigate) displays event metadata--the meta keys and meta values-- that were found in captured data for the selected service. The data is filtered and displayed in accordance with the options you set for profile, time range, meta group, and query. You can also drill into the data by clicking meta keys and meta values.
Note: By default, the Navigate view is disabled in Version 11.6 as the Filter Events Panel in the Events view provides this functionality. To enable the Navigate view, see Configure the Navigate View and Legacy Events View.
Workflow
In the Navigate view, you can:
- View metadata for events in the Values panel.
- Visualize events in a timeline or parallel coordinates chart.
- Save events, go to an event using the event ID, visualize an event, and print an event.
- View additional contextual data for meta keys and values.
- Open a drill point or an event in the Legacy Events or the Events view.
What do you want to do?
| User Role | I want to ... | Show me how |
|---|---|---|
|
Incident Responder or Threat Hunter |
review detections and signals seen in my environment |
NetWitness Platform Getting Started Guide |
| Incident Responder |
review critical incidents or alerts |
NetWitness Respond User Guide |
| Threat Hunter | query a service, metadata, and time range* |
Begin an Investigation in the Events View Begin an Investigation in the Navigate or Legacy Events View |
| Threat Hunter |
view metadata* |
|
| Threat Hunter |
view sequential events |
|
|
Threat Hunter |
reconstruct and analyze an event |
|
| Threat Hunter | examine files and associated hosts* |
Download Data in the Events View |
| Threat Hunter | perform lookups* | |
| Threat Hunter | create an incident or add to an incident | |
|
Threat Hunter |
add a meta value to a Context Hub list* |
*You can perform this task in the current view.
Related Topics
Quick Look
This figure illustrates the Version 11.5 Navigate view.
The Navigate view consists of these features:
- Toolbar
- Pause/reload button and breadcrumb
- Time banner
- Optional debug information.
- Collapsible Visualization panel
- Values panel
- Context Lookup panel
- Context menus
Toolbar
The following figure is an example of the toolbar. The toolbar provides a way to:
- Change the service being investigated.
- Control the range of data displayed: You can select use profiles, set a time range, use meta groups, and create queries to apply to the data.
- Set the quantification method and sorting method for data in the Values panel.
- Perform actions on the results. You can export and print results, open an event for which you have an event ID in the Legacy Events view or Events view, and pass a query to Informer.
- Configure Investigate settings without navigating away from the Investigate views.
Some of the toolbar options are labeled with the default value or the selected value rather than displaying the name of the option. For example, the time range option in the example above is labeled Last 5 Minutes to reflect the currently selected value. These are the toolbar options.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
 |
Displays the selected service name next to the icon. Clicking the icon opens the Investigate a Service dialog, in which you can select a service to investigate and set the default service to investigate (see Begin an Investigation in the Navigate or Legacy Events View). Changing the service does not cause a reload of the data. |
| Time Range | Displays the Time Range options; the currently selected option is displayed in the toolbar (see Filter Results in the Navigate View). Possible choices are:
Note: If you specify custom start or end times in seconds, the value for start time in seconds always defaults to :00, and the value for end time in seconds always defaults to :59. For example, if you are using time to drill down into an issue, the drill time will be interpreted as HH:MM:00 - HH:MM:59. Seconds display in this format in Investigate functions. |
| Query | Displays the Query dialog, in which you can enter a custom query directly instead of drilling down the data. See Query Dialog for a description of the dialog. |
| Profile | Displays the Profile menu; the currently selected profile is displayed in the toolbar. A profile allows you to manage and use profiles that can include custom meta groups, a default column group, and a beginning query. The Profiles apply to the Navigate view (meta groups and queries), the Legacy Events view, and the Events view (column groups and queries). See Use Query Profiles to Encapsulate Common Areas for Investigation for more information. |
| Meta | Displays the Meta Group menu. You can use Default Meta Keys or a custom Meta Group. You also have the option to make changes to both group types (see Use Meta Groups to Focus on Relevant Meta Keys). |
| Sort Field | Displays the Sort Field menu; the currently selected option is displayed in the toolbar. The menu has two options: Order by Total and Order by Value. The Sort Field is a complement to the Sort Order option; the data for each meta key is ordered based on the total (green number) or the meta value (blue text) (see Filter Results in the Navigate View). |
| Sort Order | Displays the Sort Order menu; the currently selected option is displayed in the toolbar. The menu has two options: Sort in Ascending Order and Sort in Descending. The Sort Order is a complement to the Sort Field option; the selected sort field for each meta key is ordered in ascending or descending order (see Filter Results in the Navigate View). |
| Quantification Method | Displays the Quantification Method menu; the currently selected option is displayed in the toolbar. The Quantification Method only applies to the meta key results in the Values panel. It does not apply to the timeline. The drop-down menu contains three options for calculating the quantity (green number in parentheses) for a meta value: Quantify by Event Count, Quantify by Event Size, and Quantify by Packet Count (see Filter Results in the Navigate View). These are applied differently depending on the type of data in view. For packet data:
|
| Save Events | Displays the Save Events menu, in which you can use options to: extract files associated with an event, export the current drill point as a PCAP file, and export the current drill point as a log file (see Export a Drill Point). |
| Actions | The Actions menu includes actions that you can perform in the Navigate view (see Refining the Results Set). In Version 11.1 and later, the options are Visualize, Go to event in Event Reconstruction, Go to event in Events view, and Print). |
| Search Events | Enables you to search for text patterns within the current set of events. If you click in the Search field, it shows a drop-down menu with search options. If you click Apply, it saves the selected options and also updates the search options in the Legacy Events view and the Investigations profile (see Search for Text Patterns in the Navigate and Legacy Events Views). |
| Settings | Displays the settings for the Navigate view (which are also editable in the Profile view) so that you can change Investigate settings without navigating away from the Navigate view. When you change a setting In the Navigate view the setting is also changed in the Profile view (see Configure the Navigate View and Legacy Events View). |
Pause/Reload Button and Breadcrumb
The breadcrumb tracks each query as you drill down through the metadata for the service. The following figure is an example of the breadcrumb.
Each query is listed with a drop-down menu in a pipe separated string. The last point is the current point, also called the tip. The icon in front of the breadcrumb allows you to pause the loading of meta values and to reload meta values. The breadcrumb does not include the service name and appears only if a query is in effect. If too many drill points exist for display, the overflow is shown as double angle brackets, >>, at the end of the breadcrumb. Each drop-down menu in the breadcrumb is the same, with slight variation based on the position of the crumb.
The following table describes the controls and menu options in the breadcrumb.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
 |
Pause and Reload button. Controls the loading of data in the view. It has three possible functions: pause loading, continue loading, and reload. |
| Navigate Here | Opens the selected drill point in the current Values panel. |
| Navigate Here (new tab) | Opens the selected drill point in a new tab. |
| Insert Before | Inserts a query before the current drill point. The Create Filter dialog opens and you can define a custom query to insert in the breadcrumb (see Create a Query in the Navigate and Legacy Events Views). |
| Append | Appends a query after the current drill point. The Create Filter dialog opens and you can define a custom query to append to the end of the breadcrumb (see Create a Query in the Navigate and Legacy Events Views). |
| Remove | Removes the selected drill point from the breadcrumb. |
| Edit | Opens the selected drill point in the Create Filter dialog so that you can edit the query. |
| >> | Clicking the angle brackets displays a drop-down menu of the breadcrumb overflow. |
(Optional) Debug Information
If you have activated the Show Debug Information setting and the service you are navigating is a Broker, NetWitness, displays the debug information beneath the breadcrumb.
The debug information is the where clause from the current query. The only time there is no where clause is when the time range is all data and there are no drill points. If the Broker has at least one aggregate service that is offline, the debug information also lists the offline service.
For example:
(attachment exists)&&(tcp.dstport = '80')&&(risk.info exists)$$time='2014-05-04 18:50:00"-"2014-05-09 18:59:59(attachment exists) && (tcp.dstport = '80') && (risk.info exists) && time="2014-05-04 18:50:00"-"2014-05-09 18:50:59"
In addition, the time taken to load is displayed at the end of each meta key in the Values panel.
Time Banner
Just below the breadcrumb and debug information (if present), the time banner shows the time range used to create the chart. The following figure is an example of the time banner.
Visualizations
At the top of the Navigate view is a visualization of the current drill point. You can use this to drill into data from the Visualization panel (see Filter Results in the Navigate View). You can show or hide the visualization, and choose one of thevisualization options: Timeline or Coordinates. The Visualization opens initially to the last saved Visualization.
Timeline Chart
The timeline is the count of the number of events that occur at a specific instance. The timeline provides event counts so that you can see if the number of events increases drastically at a given point in time. The timeline displays activity for the specified service and time range as a line chart or a bar chart based on your choice in the Options menu. The second figure illustrates a line chart and third figure illustrates a bar chart.
The timeline displays activity for the specified service and time range, as a line chart or a bar chart based on your choice in the Options menu.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Number of Events (Timeline) | The Y axis of the chart based on thousands of events. |
| Time Line (Timeline) | The X axis of the chart based on the time the events occurred. |
| Event point (Timeline) | If you want to explore a specific section, simply select the range from the chart. The new time range will be reflected in the chart. |
| Investigate (Timeline) | Displays the meta values for the selected subset. |
| Reset Zoom (Timeline) | To return to the original time range, click Reset Zoom. |
| Options | Displays the Visualization Options dialog. Data points can be displayed as a Line chart (default), a Bar chart, or Coordinates chart. When a chart type is select, the relevant options are displayed. |
| Hide | Collapses the chart. |
Parallel Coordinates Chart
The Parallel Coordinates chart is one of the choices in the Options menu for visualizing the current drill point. With Coordinates selected in the Visualization Options dialog, you can select the meta data to be displayed (see Visualize Metadata as Parallel Coordinates). An easy way to view a useful Parallel Coordinates chart is to choose a profile group as shown in the following figure.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Axes | Each axis is a meta key. The number of meta keys affects the load time for the chart. All meta keys are loaded, but it there the number of events per meta key is limited. |
| Lines | Lines represent events and they connect values on the axes to show the correlation between multiple meta keys. |
| Options | Displays the Visualization Options dialog. Data points can be displayed as a Line chart (default), a Bar chart, or Coordinates chart. When a chart type is select, the relevant options are displayed. |
| Only a subset of events is displayed. | This message is a notification that not all events in the values panel are drawn in the chart. Removing axes or filtering the data in the Values panel can help to display all events. |
| Events Found | Unique Paths | Displays the total number of events charted versus the number of unique paths charted. Setting the All Meta Keys Must Exist in an Event option redraws the chart so that it is more targeted and legible. |
| DNE | Indicates that there is no values for this meta key in the event. |
In the Visualization Options dialog for Coordinates, you can select the meta keys to chart.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Visualization selection | Displays a drop-down list of visualization types: Timeline and Coordinates |
| All Meta Keys Must Exist in an Event | Limits the data represented in the visualization to only those events that include all selected meta keys. This can result in a cleaner, more targeted visualization. |
 |
Displays the Add Keys to Parallel Coordinates Visualization dialog so that you can add axes to the visualization. This is useful if you are looking for relationships between the default meta keys and some additional ones. |
 |
Deletes the selected keys so that they do not appear as axes in the visualization. This can help to make the visualization less cluttered and allow for more data points to be included in the visualization. |
 |
Reverts to the default meta keys for visualization, which consist of all meta keys in the current drill point. |
 |
Controls the display of additional information about the number of selected axes versus the recommended count. This helps to make you aware of possible performance improvements by removing axes. |
| Axes | Lists the meta keys selected as axes in the visualization. |
| Cancel | Cancels any changes made to the visualization options. |
| Apply | Saves the changes made to the visualization options and applies to the current visualization. |
In the Add Keys to Parallel Coordinates Visualization dialog, you can select the meta keys or meta groups to use as axes the Parallel Coordinates visualization.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Visualization selection | Select Keys: Two options for selecting meta keys are:
|
| With the Selected Meta Keys... | The options for the method of adding meta keys allow you to:
|
| Cancel | Closes the dialog and does not add any keys. |
| Add | Closes the dialog and adds the selected keys as specified. |
Values Panel
The major feature of the Navigate view is the Values panel, which presents meta keys and meta values found in the service being investigated. Procedures for analyzing data in the Values panel are provided in Filter Results in the Navigate View.
Note: Title, values, and counts for non-indexed meta keys are not drillable; the Values and counts are shown in black.
| 1 |
The meta keys in the Values panel have drop-down menus, which offer actions that can apply to that meta key. You can use these to change the way the results for the meta key are displayed in the current view. Changes made to meta keys are displayed in the current view and persist until you refresh the page or select a new service in the Navigate view toolbar. See Drill into Data in the Values Panel Refresh reverts to the current view of meta keys as defined in the Manage Default Meta Keys dialog (see Manage and Apply Default Meta Keys in an Investigation). If you have never made modifications in the Manage Default Meta Keys dialog, NetWitness, a refresh restores the default meta keys from the core service.
|
| 2 | The name of the meta key for which values are listed. In Version 11.3 and later, the user friendly name of the meta key is displayed with the index file name of the meta key following in brackets. For example Content Type [content] gives the user friendly name of the content meta key with the index file name in parentheses. For meta groups, the name of the group is given in plain English with the meta group name following in parentheses. This is an example of a meta group name as it would appear in the Values panel: All User Keys [users.all]. |
| 3 and 4 | Clicking  on an indexed meta key opens the Search dialog in which you can enter a filter for the current meta key. The search function is not available for non-indexed meta keys, and is based on the actual meta value rather than the alias. Drilling in the Search dialog using aliases is not supported.NOTE: Check with your administrator to obtain a list of aliases used for a meta key in Investigation. When an alias is used, this search dialog does not provide results. Instead, you must query the meta key using the Right-click query capability or the Query dialog. |
| 5 | The meta value associated with the found meta key. These are listed in order by meta value name or by the count of events in which the meta value was found, according to your preference. |
| 6 |
The number of events that include the meta value. |
| 7 |
The number or values rendered is specified by the Render Threads value in the Investigation Preference settings. In the example above, the meta key is Content Type, and 40 of 40+ values are currently displayed. You can display additional values by clicking ...show more. The number of instances found for a particular meta in the session. |
Values Panel Loading Behavior
The default view is for the last 3 hours of collection, using the default meta keys and non-indexed meta keys closed. The meta keys within the meta groups are displayed in the order that NetWitness queries the keys. As the data loads into the Values panel, NetWitness is optimized to show partial results, loading progress, and service status as the data loads.
The loading behavior is determined by several configuration settings. The highest level settings are configured by the administrator for each user. These are:
- The maximum amount of time allowed for this user to run a query (Query Timeout).
- The limit at which NetWitness stops counting the number of meta values in a session (Session Threshold). If a threshold is set for a session, the Navigate view shows that the threshold was reached and the percentage of results loaded. Any session that does not show a percentage is accurate and was processed to completion. If there is a percentage, that reflects how much processing was completed. The percentage displayed is estimated by extrapolating from the value at the time processing finished, considering the amount of work remaining. Larger percentages are generally more accurate because they require less extrapolating
- The limit at which NetWitness stops counting the number of meta values in a session (Session Threshold). If a threshold is set for a session, the Navigate view shows that the threshold was reached and the percentage of query time used to reach the threshold.
Note: The values for non-indexed meta keys take longer to load in the Values panel. To optimize loading, NetWitness does not open non-indexed meta keys by default. Refer to Manage and Apply Default Meta Keys in an Investigation for a detailed description of non-indexed meta keys in Investigation.
When you have launched an investigation of a service, NetWitness displays results in the Values panel.
- NetWitness loads meta keys and meta values in the Values panel. For each meta key load, the stages of load are:
- Waiting to Be Loaded or Closed. If Closed, no data for that key is loaded.
- Loading
- Loading progress: NetWitness is receiving and displaying progress messages.
- Partial results: NetWitness is receiving values messages and partial results are displayed in the Values panel.
- Load Complete: All results are finished loading.
- As each meta key load is completed, and final values are displayed, the next meta key is started. The number or values rendered for each meta key is specified by the Render Threads value in the Investigation Preference settings. Loading continues until all keys to be loaded have finished.
- If Show Debug Information is active and the service you are navigating is a 10.4 or later Broker, NetWitness displays load time information beneath the values for each meta key and displays additional load details for the aggregated services. NetWitness also displays the debug information beneath the breadcrumb.
Iterative results
Iterative results provide feedback on the status of queries within the interfaces to provide additional context for how long the data load will take and if any service data is missing. For example, if you are querying a Broker that is aggregating from two Concentrators, NetWitness starts displaying the results from the first Concentrator as soon as it is available, even if the second Concentrator is still waiting for results.
Iterative results also include a notification that service data is missing because the service is unreachable.
Partial results
When partial values from the Core service are returned but not completed, a message at the end of the meta key listing shows the progress of values loaded. For example, Currently looking at 38 ip.src values 71% indicates that loading of values for the meta key is 71% complete.
Debug Information
If the Show Debug Information setting is in effect, a field at the end of the values displays the status for the different systems against which you are querying within NetWitness. For example, when you are querying against a 10.4 broker pulling from multiple concentrators, NetWitness displays the status of the query on each of the Concentrators, which provides insight into the relative speed of data loading from each of the Concentrators. Each service that participated in the query is listed with the total elapsed time for the query.
Each service that participated in the query is listed with the total elasped time for the query. In the example above, two services returned in 3.207 seconds, localhost:50005 took 2 seconds to return the results. In addition, the where clause of the query is displayed below the breadcrumb. You can copy this syntax directly into an application rule or Reporting where clause of a rule.
Load Complete
For each meta key, there is a list of values (blue text) and counts (green text) found in the current drill point. When you click a value to drill down into a subset of the currently selected data, the display is updated and the new drill point is recorded in the breadcrumb. You can specify the sorting and quantification methods for the values list using the option in the toolbar.
