Ways in
| Input | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Beats over TLS | Your own winlogbeat and filebeat fleet. |
| Syslog (RFC 3164 and 5424, CEF, LEEF) | Firewalls, appliances, Linux hosts. TLS for anything crossing an untrusted network; plain UDP or TCP only on trusted segments. |
| HTTP JSON | Scripts, other SIEMs, anything that can POST an object or an array. |
| Splunk HEC | Products that already speak the HTTP Event Collector protocol. |
| Pull connectors | Cloud sources XenXDR polls on your behalf: Okta, and Microsoft Entra ID and Microsoft 365. More are listed as coming soon in the catalog. |
What happens to an event
- Receive. The listener accepts the event and stamps its provenance: which input, which sender, which organization.
- Normalise. XenXDR maps the event to the canonical schema: one name per field, typed, ECS-shaped. The original document is kept in the
rawfield next to the parsed fields. - Enrich at ingest. IPs, users, hosts, hashes and domains are extracted as entities for cross-source pivots, and indicators are matched against loaded threat intelligence lists.
- Store. The event is written to the store under its organization. Nothing about it is ever rewritten.
- Or park. If the event cannot be parsed, it is written to the unparsed queue with the parse error, kept for 14 days, and summarised under Settings › System › Parser coverage. Every event is accounted for.
Guarantees you can plan around
- The raw event is preserved. An investigation or an audit can always see what actually arrived.
- Tenancy is stamped server-side. A sender using a shared key lands in the deployment's default organization; a sender using a per-organization ingest key lands in that organization and cannot pick another.
- Ingest rides out interruptions. Events are buffered durably and delivered once the store is available again.
- Parse failures are visible. Parser coverage under Settings › System shows rejected formats and streams that arrive with no fields extracted, so you notice when a source changes format.
Choosing between inputs
Use the agent where you want response as well as collection. Use syslog for devices that speak nothing else. Use HTTP JSON with a per-organization key for anything you script, and for third parties that send on a customer's behalf. Use HEC when a product already has a HEC output; it saves a rewrite.