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<title>knife-search(1) - Find objects on a Chef Server by query</title>
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<a href="#NAME">NAME</a>
<a href="#SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a>
<a href="#DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a>
<a href="#INDEXES">INDEXES</a>
<a href="#QUERY-SYNTAX">QUERY SYNTAX</a>
<a href="#EXAMPLES">EXAMPLES</a>
<a href="#KNOWN-BUGS">KNOWN BUGS</a>
<a href="#SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a>
<a href="#AUTHOR">AUTHOR</a>
<a href="#DOCUMENTATION">DOCUMENTATION</a>
<a href="#CHEF">CHEF</a>
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<ol class='man-decor man-head man head'>
<li class='tl'>knife-search(1)</li>
<li class='tc'>Chef Manual</li>
<li class='tr'>knife-search(1)</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="NAME">NAME</h2>
<p class="man-name">
<code>knife-search</code> - <span class="man-whatis">Find objects on a Chef Server by query</span>
</p>
<h2 id="SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</h2>
<p><strong>knife</strong> <strong>search INDEX QUERY</strong> <em>(options)</em></p>
<dl>
<dt><code>-a</code>, <code>--attribute ATTR</code></dt><dd>Show only one attribute</dd>
<dt><code>-i</code>, <code>--id-only</code></dt><dd>Show only the ID of matching objects</dd>
<dt><code>-q</code>, <code>--query QUERY</code></dt><dd>The search query; useful to protect queries starting with -</dd>
<dt><code>-R</code>, <code>--rows INT</code></dt><dd>The number of rows to return</dd>
<dt><code>-r</code>, <code>--run-list</code></dt><dd>Show only the run list</dd>
<dt><code>-o</code>, <code>--sort SORT</code></dt><dd>The order to sort the results in</dd>
<dt><code>-b</code>, <code>--start ROW</code></dt><dd>The row to start returning results at</dd>
<dt><code>-m</code>, <code>--medium</code></dt><dd>Display medium sized output when searching nodes using the default
summary format</dd>
<dt><code>-l</code>, <code>--long</code></dt><dd>Display long output when searching nodes using the default summary
format</dd>
</dl>
<h2 id="DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</h2>
<p>Search is a feature of the Chef Server that allows you to use a
full-text search engine to query information about your infrastructure
and applications. You can utilize this service via search calls in a
recipe or the knife search command. The search syntax is based on
Lucene.</p>
<h2 id="INDEXES">INDEXES</h2>
<p>Search indexes are a feature of the Chef Server and the search
sub-command allows querying any of the available indexes using SOLR
query syntax. The following data types are indexed for search:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>node</em></li>
<li><em>role</em></li>
<li><em>environment</em></li>
<li><em>clients</em></li>
<li><em>data bag</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Data bags are indexed by the data bag's name. For example, to search a
data bag named "admins":</p>
<pre><code>knife search admins "field:search_pattern"
</code></pre>
<h2 id="QUERY-SYNTAX">QUERY SYNTAX</h2>
<p>Queries have the form <code>field:search_pattern</code> where <code>field</code> is a key in
the JSON description of the relevant objects (nodes, roles,
environments, or data bags). Both <code>field</code> and <code>search_pattern</code> are
case-sensitive. <code>search_pattern</code> can be an exact, wildcard,
range, or fuzzy match (see below). The <code>field</code> supports exact
matching and limited wildcard matching.</p>
<p>Searches will return the relevant objects (nodes, roles, environments,
or data bags) where the <code>search_pattern</code> matches the object's value of
<code>field</code>.</p>
<h3 id="FIELD-NAMES">FIELD NAMES</h3>
<p>Field names are the keys within the JSON description of the object
being searched. Nested Keys can be searched by placing an underscore
("_") between key names.</p>
<h3 id="WILDCARD-MATCHING-FOR-FIELD-NAMES">WILDCARD MATCHING FOR FIELD NAMES</h3>
<p>The field name also has limited support for wildcard matching. Both
the "*" and "?" wildcards (see below) can be used within a field name;
however, they cannot be the first character of the field name.</p>
<h3 id="EXACT-MATCHES">EXACT MATCHES</h3>
<p>Without any search modifiers, a search returns those fields for which
the <code>search_pattern</code> exactly matches the value of <code>field</code> in the JSON
description of the object.</p>
<h3 id="WILDCARD-MATCHES">WILDCARD MATCHES</h3>
<p>Search support both single- and multi-character wildcard searches
within a search pattern.</p>
<p>'?' matches exactly one character.</p>
<p>'*' matches zero or more characters.</p>
<h3 id="RANGE-MATCHES">RANGE MATCHES</h3>
<p>Range searches allows one to match values between two given values. To
match values between X and Y, inclusively, use square brackets:</p>
<pre><code>knife search INDEX 'field:[X TO Y]
</code></pre>
<p>To match values between X and Y, exclusively, use curly brackets:</p>
<pre><code>knife search INDEX 'field:{X TO Y}'
</code></pre>
<p>Values are sorted in lexicographic order.</p>
<h3 id="FUZZY-MATCHES">FUZZY MATCHES</h3>
<p>Fuzzy searches allows one to match values based on the Levenshtein
Distance algorithm. To perform a fuzzy match, append a tilda (~) to
the search term:</p>
<pre><code>knife search INDEX 'field:term~'
</code></pre>
<p>This search would return nodes whose <code>field</code> was 'perm' or 'germ'.</p>
<h3 id="BOOLEAN-OPERATORS">BOOLEAN OPERATORS</h3>
<p>The boolean operators NOT, AND, and OR are supported. To find values
of <code>field</code> that are not X:</p>
<pre><code>knife search INDEX 'field:(NOT X)'
</code></pre>
<p>To find records where <code>field1</code> is X and <code>field2</code> is Y:</p>
<pre><code>knife search INDEX 'field1:X AND field2:Y'
</code></pre>
<p>To find records where <code>field</code> is X or Y:</p>
<pre><code>knife search INDEX 'field:X OR field:Y'
</code></pre>
<h3 id="QUOTING-AND-SPECIAL-CHARACTERS">QUOTING AND SPECIAL CHARACTERS</h3>
<p>In order to avoid having special characters and escape sequences
within your search term interpreted by either Ruby or the shell,
enclose them in single quotes.</p>
<p>Search terms that include spaces should be enclosed in double-quotes:</p>
<pre><code>knife search INDEX 'field:"term with spaces"'
</code></pre>
<p>The following characters must be escaped:</p>
<pre><code>+ - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \
</code></pre>
<h2 id="EXAMPLES">EXAMPLES</h2>
<p>Find the nodes with the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN)
www.example.com:</p>
<pre><code>knife search node 'fqdn:www.example.com'
</code></pre>
<p>Find the nodes running a version of Ubuntu:</p>
<pre><code>knife search node 'platform:ubuntu*'
</code></pre>
<p>Find all nodes running CentOS in the production environment:</p>
<pre><code>knife search node 'chef_environment:production AND platform:centos'
</code></pre>
<h2 id="KNOWN-BUGS">KNOWN BUGS</h2>
<ul>
<li>Searches against the client index return no results in most cases. (CHEF-2477)</li>
<li>Searches using the fuzzy match operator (~) produce an error. (CHEF-2478)</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</h2>
<p> <strong>knife-ssh</strong>(1)
<a href="http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Attributes" data-bare-link="true">http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Attributes</a>
<a href="http://lucene.apache.org/java/2_3_2/queryparsersyntax.html">Lucene Query Parser Syntax</a></p>
<h2 id="AUTHOR">AUTHOR</h2>
<p> Chef was written by Adam Jacob <a href="mailto:adam@opscode.com" data-bare-link="true">adam@opscode.com</a> with many contributions from the community.</p>
<h2 id="DOCUMENTATION">DOCUMENTATION</h2>
<p> This manual page was written by Joshua Timberman <a href="mailto:joshua@opscode.com" data-bare-link="true">joshua@opscode.com</a>.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and / or modify this document under the terms of the Apache 2.0 License.</p>
<h2 id="CHEF">CHEF</h2>
<p> Knife is distributed with Chef. <a href="http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home" data-bare-link="true">http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home</a></p>
<ol class='man-decor man-foot man foot'>
<li class='tl'>Chef 11.6.2</li>
<li class='tc'>October 2013</li>
<li class='tr'>knife-search(1)</li>
</ol>
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