# Live filter search

The idea is not just to provide a good search engine, but also a complete solution for managing all your XenServer infrastructure. Ideally:

- less clicks to see or do what you need
- find a subset of interesting objects
- perform bulk actions on all results found
- sort your results for more pertinent insight

> Pro Tip: the URL of Xen Orchestra contains the search string, eg `home?s=power_state%3Arunning+`. You can share these URLs to your colleagues to share your search!

## Search examples

We include some predefined filters in the dropdown "Filters":

![](./assets/xo5presetfilter.png)

You can use custom filters here:

![](./assets/xo5presetfilter2.png)

## Save your search

If you want to record your filter, just click on the "Save" icon ![](./assets/xo5savefilter.png)

After giving a name to your filter, you will be able to find it in the dropdown filter menu.

## Manage your saved search

Just go into your user panel (bottom of main left menu):

![](./assets/xo5usericon.png)

There, you can edit or remove any filter/search you've created!

## Set a default search

In this user section, you can set a default filter (preset filters or your own).

> Pro Tip: this is saved in your user preferences. It means that you can connect anywhere on any browser, and you'll still see the same behavior.

## Filter syntax

> A filter allows you to search through a collection of objects which have multiple properties and may even contain other nested objects.

#### Searching for a string (or substring)

Simply type the string, if it contains special characters just surround it with quotes:

- `simple-string`
- `"string with special characters like whitespaces"`

> The search is recursive, case insensitive and non-anchored (i.e. matches if the pattern is contained in a string).

A simple string can also contain a wildcard character (`*`) to match any character in a portion of the string:

- `foo*bar`: matches `foobar`, `foo - bar`, etc.

#### Regular expression

For more advanced string matching, you can use regular expressions:

- `/^DNS server \d+$/`: matches `DNS server 1`, `DNS server 05` but not `DNS server`
- `/foo/i`: with the `i` flag, it ignores the case, therefore it matches `Foo` and `FOO`

[More information about supported regular expressions](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Guide/Regular_Expressions).

#### Searching a specific property

Type the property name, followed by a colon `:` and a subfilter:

- `name_label:"my VM"`
- `virtualizationMode:hvm`
- `boot:order:cn`

#### Exclusion

Prefix your filter with an exclamation mark `!` to exclude any matching results:

- `!hvm`
- `!power_state:Running` or `power_state:!Running`

#### Intersection

Simply type the filter's terms side by side:

- `power_state:Halted !virtualizationMode:hvm`

#### Grouping

Parentheses can be used to group terms together:

- `!(power_state:Running virtualizationMode:hvm)`

#### Union

Pipe `|` followed by a group of terms:

- `|(vm1 vm2)`
- `power_state:|(Running suspended)`

#### Truthy property

This one is less common but can be used to check whether a property has a truth-like value (`true`, non-empty string or non-zero number).

Postfix the name of a property by a question mark `?`:

- `auto_poweron?`
- `high_availability?`

#### Number comparison

You can use the search field/filter with number comparisons:

- `snapshots:length:>2` (to display VMs with more than 2 snapshots)
- `$VBDs:length:>=4` (VMs with more 4 or more disks attached)
- `VIFs:length:>=2` (number of network interfaces)

## Available properties

There isn't much documentation listing these (yet), but you can see all objects and their properties using `xo-cli --list-objects`. You can then use these properties for search in XOA.

Take a look at [the documentation](https://github.com/vatesfr/xen-orchestra/tree/master/packages/xo-cli#xo-cli) for xo-cli :)

Example: to search by the Xen Tools status:

- `xenTools?`: whether the tools are installed
- `xenTools:"up to date"`: whether they are installed and up to date