Querying can be the most challenging yet the most rewarding part of the JupiterOne experience. After you become familiar with the query language, you will uncover numerous previously undiscovered insights into your data.
The JupiterOne Query Language (J1QL) is a query language for finding the assets and relationships within your digital environment. J1QL blends together the capabilities of asking questions, performing full text search, or querying the complex entity-relationship graph.
There are several prepackaged queries you can use in the Search app or browse for in Query Library. This tutorial focuses on helping you construct custom queries yourself.
This tutorial builds on the [full J1QL documentation][../j1ql-doc.md] using some common use cases.
The queries in this tutorial and other JupiterOne documentation are examples that work in most cases, but may require fine-tuning based on the specific structure of your data sources.
Part 1: Simple Root Query
Try this query:
Find Account that relates to Root return tree
The noun that immediately follows the verb is case-sensitive:
- A
TitleCase
word tells the query to search for assets of that class (such as Account
, Firewall
, Gateway
, Host
, User
, Root
, Internet
).
- A
snake_case
word tells the query to search for assets of that type (such as aws_account
, aws_security_group
, aws_internet_gateway
, aws_instance
, aws_iam_user
, okta_user
, user_endpoint
)
You get a result similar to this (the return tree
part of the query tells it to show the graph view by default):

The selected asset in the above example is the special Root
asset node, which represents your organization. Depending on the number of integration configurations you have, you see a different number of connected accounts, showing that the Root
entity OWNS
these Account
assets.
There are three sets of controls in the result panel. Starting from top-right to bottom-left of the graph:
The first set of controls (next to the query) allows you to:
Switch views between Table, Graph, Raw JSON, and Pretty JSON.
Share the query, using a provided weblink to copy and share.
Save the query, where you give it a title, description and, optionally, some tags to save it to your own query library.
Close or remove this results panel from the page.
The second set of controls (above the selected asset node) allows you to:
- Show the detailed properties, tags, and metadata of the selected asset.
Expand the asset to see more of its connected neighbors, which shows additional data that the original query may not have returned, allowing you to further the search and analysis.
Hide the selected asset node from the graph view. After you have hidden an asset, an unhide button appears in the third set of controls at the bottom-left of the graph, allowing you to unhide all currently hidden assets.
The last set of controls (in the bottom-left corner) allows you to:
Toggle the full screen mode.
Opens the filter panel to show/hide assets in the graph by account or asset type.
Unhide all currently hidden assets (not shown in the above image as it only shows when there is at least one hidden asset).
See more details on the graph controls in this [documentation][../quickstart-graph.md].
Part 2: Infrastructure Analysis
Examples in this section require at least one AWS integration configuration.
If you have configured an AWS integration, you are now ready to try something more
advanced.
SSH Key Usage Examples
Enter this query:
Find AccessKey with usage='ssh'
This query finds a set of aws_access_key
assets used for SSH access into your EC2 instances, assuming you have some of those and they are configured to allow SSH access.
You can also query by the asset type instead of its class. The following query returns the same result unless you also have SSH keys you have added from other non-AWS integrations or from the UI or API.
Find aws_key_pair
You can expand the search using the following:
Find Host as h
that uses AccessKey with usage='ssh' as k
return
h.tag.AccountName,
h._type,
h.displayName,
h.instanceId,
h.region,
h.availabilityZone,
h.publicIpAddress,
h.privateIpAddress,
h.platform,
h.instanceType,
h.state,
k._type,
k.displayName
This query finds the Host
asset that USES
each AccessKey
and returns a set of specific properties. You can add or remove the returned properties, if necessary. The keyword that
is what tells the query to traverse the graph to find connections/relationships between assets, followed by a verb that represents the relationship class. Also, you can switch to the Graph view to get a more visual result, and continue to drill down interactively.
Again, you can query using the more specific asset types. For example:
Find aws_instance that uses aws_key_pair
Or mix and match them:
Find Host that uses aws_key_pair
The relationship keyword/verb is not case-sensitive.
EBS Volume Examples
First, to see if there are any unencrypted EBS volumes, use this query:
Find aws_ebs_volume with encrypted != true
In the above query the with
keyword binds to the asset noun immediately to its left, and allows you to filter results on the property values of that entity.
If the above query finds some unencrypted EBS volumes, you can see what is using them by entering:
Find Host that uses aws_ebs_volume with encrypted != true
You can view the aws_ebs_volume
assets and their relationships in the Graph mode, and further inspect the properties on each asset node or relationship edge. You can also expand to see more connected assets and relationships.
To see which volumes are active and in production, enter:
Find Host with active = true and tag.Production = true
that uses aws_ebs_volume with encrypted != true
To determine which subnets these instances are in and to only return a few key properties from type of assets related to this search, enter:
Find Network as n
that has Host as h
that uses aws_ebs_volume with encrypted != true and tag.Production = true as e return
n.displayName, h._type, h.displayName, e.displayName, e.encrypted
To remove any unused EBS volumes, enter:
Find aws_ebs_volume that !uses Host
The above query may seem backwards. The query works the same way regardless of the direction of the relationship. Because the query, by default, returns all properties from the initial set of assets, it is sometimes easier to reverse the query direction so that you can more easily get the data you are searching.
Technically, Find Host that !uses aws_ebs_volume as v return v.*
may seem more correct, but it is a more lengthy query to enter.
Unencrypted Data
There are many types of data stores you can have in AWS, such as EBS Volumes, S3 Buckets, RDS Clusters and Instances, DynamoDB Tables, and Redshift Clusters. You should ensure they are encrypted if they store
confidential data.
To know if the data stores are encryped, enter:
Find (aws_s3_bucket|aws_rds_cluster|aws_db_instance|aws_dynamodb_table|aws_redshift_cluster) with encrypted!=true
The above query is complex. The abstract class labeling automatically assigned by J1 can help by querying by class:
Find DataStore with encrypted != true
Add a few property filters to make the results more focused, to help reduce the noise, or to prioritize remediation:
Find DataStore with
encrypted != true and
tag.Production = true and
(classification = 'confidential' or classification = 'restricted')
Tagging Resources
As shown in the earlier examples, tagging resources is useful. It is recommended that you tag your resources at the source. J1 ingests these tags and you can use them in custom queries.
By default, the packaged queries provided by J1, as seen in the Query Library from the Search app and used in the Compliance app, rely on the following tags:
Classification
Owner
PII
or PHI
or PCI
(boolean
tags to indicate data type)
AccountName
Production
All custom tags ingested by J1 integrations are prefixed with tag.<TagName>
, therefore. you must use the tags this way in the query.
The Classification
and Owner
tags are automatically captured as properties so J1 can use them directly in the query without the tag.
prefix, in all lower case: classification = '...'
or owner= '...'
.
J1 can add the tag.AccountName
(string
) and tag.Production
(boolean
) tags as part of the advanced options in each integration configuration.
More information about tagging resources is in:
Network Resources and Configurations
You can use queries to ask questions or confirm information about your network resources and their configurations.
For example, to find network resources and their connections:
Find (Gateway|Firewall) with category='network'
that relates to *
return tree
Remember that you can toggle the result back to Table view.
To find networks and subnets:
Find Network that contains Network return tree
Or resources in a VPC:
Find Network that has (Host|Cluster|Database) return tree
This is a basic result. Your environment may look more complex:

The properties side panel for the selected aws_subnet
has a webLink
that enables you to quickly get to the source directly in the AWS web console.
In AWS, you may have set up CloudFront distributions to distribute traffic to your API gateways or static websites hosted in S3, such as this example:
Find aws_cloudfront_distribution that relates to * return tree
The following is a J1 account with multiple AWS integration configurations and several aws_cloudfront_distribution
assets and relationships.

This graph shows you the origins connected to the distributions: both S3 buckets (for static website/contents) and API gateways. Additionally, the graph shows you the ACM certificate they use and the WAF ACL, if any, configured to protect them.
You can select any asset node in the graph to inspect its detailed properties, or find a web link to get to the source in the AWS web console.
If you use AWS Transfer for SFTP, you can find the transfer servers, users, which IAM roles are assigned to them, and to which S3 buckets the users have access.
Find aws_account
that HAS aws_transfer
that HAS Host
that HAS User
that RELATES TO *
return tree
You get a visual similar to this:

Serverless Functions
If you are using serverless (Lambda) functions) there are a few things to help you see how they are configured.
To see a listing of your lambda functions:
Find aws_lambda_function
To see what triggers each function:
find aws_lambda_function as function
that TRIGGERS * as trigger
return
trigger._type, trigger.displayName, trigger.arn, trigger.webLink, function.functionName, function.arn, function.webLink
To see if there are Lambda functions with access to resources in a VPC:
Find aws_lambda_function that has aws_vpc return tree
The above query gives you a visual graph of the Lambda functions and the VPC they are configured to run inside.
It is a best practice to not run Lambda functions without access to a VPC unless they need direct access to resources within one, such as EC2 instances, RDS databases, or ElasticSearch/ElastiCache.
To see if inbound SSH is allowed directly from an external host or network:
Find Firewall as fw
that ALLOWS as rule (Host|Network)
with internal=false or internal=undefined as src
where rule.ingress=true and (rule.fromPort<=22 and rule.toPort>=22)
return
fw._type,
fw.displayName,
rule.fromPort,
rule.toPort,
src.displayName,
src.ipAddress,
src.CIDR
The above query uses where
to filter the property values of the relationship. You can use both with
and where
to filter property values of assets. See the [full J1QL documentation][../j1ql-doc.md] for more details.
Also, you can toggle to the Graph view to see the above results more visually and interactively.
To see which production resources are directly connected/exposed to the internet/everyone:
Find (Internet|Everyone)
that relates to *
with tag.Production=true and _class!='Firewall' and _class!='Gateway'
return tree
To see your network layer resources:
Find (Firewall | Gateway) with category='network'
To learn about security group protection:
Find aws_security_group that PROTECTS aws_instance return tree
TIP: Select a relationship edge in the graph to see the security group rule details, such as the properties on the relationship edge.
Part 3: User and Access Analysis
After you have configured an Okta or OneLogin integration, you can use these queries.
IdP users and access
Examples in this section require an identity provider integration (Okta or OneLogin).
To find out if there are system accounts that do not belong to an individual employee/user:
Find User that !is Person
User
entities in J1 are automatically mapped to a corresponding Person
(_type: 'employee'
) asset when there is at least one Identity Provider (IdP) integration configuration such as Okta or OneLogin.
TIP: Set the userType
property of the user profile in your IdP account to 'system' or 'generic' or 'bot'
to prevent J1 from creating a Person
entity for that user.
TIP: Setting the username
of your aws_iam_user
or other non-IdP users to be the email address of a person / employee enables J1 to automatically map that user to its corresponding person. Alternatively, you can add an email
tag to your aws_iam_user
for the mapping to work.
To see which active user accounts do not have multi-factor authentication enabled:
Find User with active = true and mfaEnabled != true
that !(ASSIGNED|USES|HAS) mfa_device
Depending on the specific IdP integration, a User
asset may have a relationship mapping to an mfa_device
instead of the mfaEnabled
flag directly as a property. Therefore, the above query finds all User
assets with the active
flag but not the mfaEnabled
flag set to true on its properties and, additionally, checks for the existence of an relationship between that User
and any mfa_device
assigned or in use.
To find out if there are users accessing my AWS application without using MFA:
Find User with active = true and mfaEnabled != true
that ASSIGNED Application with displayName = 'Amazon Web Services'
Replace the string value of the displayName
to check for another application.
You can also use shortName = 'aws'
, which checks for all AWS application instances, if you have more than one AWS SAML app configured with your IdP.
Find all contractors and external users in the environment.
Find User that IS Person that !EMPLOYS Root
The above query finds user accounts belong to any individual not directly employed by your organization (Root
entity).
Find User as u that IS Person as p
where u.userType='contractor' or p.employeeType='contractor'
The above query finds contractor users.
Cloud users and access
Examples in this section require at least one AWS integration configuration.
To see who has been assigned full administrator access in AWS:
find (aws_iam_role|aws_iam_user|aws_iam_group)
that ASSIGNED AccessPolicy with policyName='AdministratorAccess'
To find which IAM roles are assigned which IAM policies:
find aws_iam_role as role
that ASSIGNED AccessPolicy as policy
return
role._type as RoleType,
role.roleName as RoleName,
policy._type as PolicyType,
policy.policyName as PolicyName
Combined users and access across all environments
Examples in this section work best when there are both IdP and AWS integration configurations enabled in JupiterOne.
To see who has access to what systems/resources:
Find (User|Person) as u
that (ASSIGNED|TRUSTS|HAS|OWNS)
(Application|AccessPolicy|AccessRole|Account|Device|Host) as a
return
u.displayName, u._type, u.username, u.email,
a._type, a.displayName, a.tag.AccountName
order by u.displayName
Part 4 - Cross Account Analysis
Many examples in this section requires both Okta and AWS integration configurations in JupiterOne, as well as an AWS SAML app configured in your Okta account. Some queries work best when you have multiple AWS configurations.
To see who has access to your AWS accounts via single sign on (SSO):
Find User as U
that ASSIGNED Application as App
that CONNECTS aws_account as AWS
return
U.displayName as User,
App.tag.AccountName as IdP,
App.displayName as ssoApplication,
App.signOnMode as signOnMode,
AWS.name as awsAccount
To know if there are assume role trusts from one AWS account to other external entities:
Find aws_account
that HAS aws_iam
that HAS aws_iam_role
that TRUSTS (Account|AccessRole|User|UserGroup) with _source='system-mapper'
return tree
In the above query, _source='system-mapper'
is an indicator that the trusted asset is not one ingested by an integration configuration. Instead, it is mapped and created by J1 during the analysis of Assume Role policies of the IAM roles in your accounts. Therefore, these entities are most likely external.
For example, you can see the JupiterOne integration IAM role with a TRUSTS
relationship to the JupiterOne AWS account.
Part 5 - Endpoint Compliance
Examples in this section require the activation of at least one JupiterOne Endpoint Compliance Agent - powered by Stethoscope app.
To see if the local firewall is enabled on end-user devices:
Find HostAgent as agent
that MONITORS user_endpoint as device
return
device.displayName,
device.platform,
device.osVersion,
device.hardwareModel,
device.owner,
agent.firewall,
agent.compliant,
agent._type,
agent.displayName
To see which endpoints are non-compliant:
Find Person as person
that OWNS (Host|Device) as device
that MONITORS HostAgent with compliant!=true as agent
return
person.displayName,
person.email,
device.displayName,
device.platform,
device.osVersion,
device.hardwareModel,
device.owner,
agent.compliant,
agent._type,
agent.displayName
To know which applications those users have access to:
Find HostAgent with compliant!=true
that MONITORS (Host|Device)
that OWNS Person
that IS User
that Assigned Application
return tree
To see if any of those above have access to AWS:
Find HostAgent with compliant!=true
that MONITORS (Host|Device)
that OWNS Person
that IS User
that (ASSIGNED|HAS) (aws_iam_role|aws_iam_policy|aws_iam_user_policy|aws_iam_group)
return tree
The resulting graph looks similar this:
