osqueryi is the osquery interactive query console/shell. In this mode, it is completely standalone, does not communicate with a daemon, and does not need to run as an administrator (although some tables may return fewer results when running as non-administrator). Use the osquery shell to prototype queries and explore the current state of your operating system.

Executing SQL queries

osqueryi lets you run meta-commands and query osquery tables. See the schema API for a complete list of tables, types, and column descriptions. For SQL syntax help, see SQL as understood by SQLite.

Note: the osqueryd binary, when run as osqueryd -S, operates as osqueryi. It will also operate in the interactive mode if the executable is renamed as osqueryi.

Here is an example query:

$ osqueryi
osquery> SELECT DISTINCT
    ...>   process.name,
    ...>   listening.port,
    ...>   process.pid
    ...> FROM processes AS process
    ...> JOIN listening_ports AS listening
    ...> ON process.pid = listening.pid
    ...> WHERE listening.address = '0.0.0.0';
+----------+-------+-------+
| name     | port  | pid   |
+----------+-------+-------+
| Spotify  | 57621 | 18666 |
| ARDAgent | 3283  | 482   |
+----------+-------+-------+
osquery>

The shell accepts a single positional argument and one of the several output modes. If you want to output JSON or CSV values, try:

$ osqueryi --json "SELECT * FROM routes WHERE destination = '::1'"
[
  {"destination":"::1","flags":"2098181","gateway":"::1","interface":"","metric":"0","mtu":"16384","netmask":"128","source":"","type":"local"}
]

You may also pipe a query as stdin. The input will be executed on the osqueryi shell and must be well-formed SQL or osqueryi meta-commands. Note the added ';' to the query when using stdin:

$ echo "SELECT * FROM routes WHERE destination = '::1';" | osqueryi --json

Getting help

osqueryi is a modified version of the SQLite shell.It accepts several meta-commands, prefixed with a '.':

• to list all tables: .tables
• to list the schema (columns, types) of a specific table: .schema table_name or pragma table_info(table_name); for more details
• to list all available commands: .help
• to exit the console: .exit or ^DHere are some example shell commands:

osquery> .tables
  => alf_services
  => apps
  => ca_certs
  => etc_hosts
  => interface_addresses
  => interface_details
  => kernel_extensions
  => launchd
  => listening_ports
  => nvram
  => processes
  => routes
[...]
osquery> .schema routes
CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE routes USING routes(
    destination TEXT,
    netmask TEXT,
    gateway TEXT,
    source TEXT,
    flags INTEGER,
    interface TEXT,
    mtu INTEGER,
    metric INTEGER,
    type TEXT
);
osquery> PRAGMA table_info(routes);
+-----+-------------+---------+---------+------------+----+
| cid | name        | type    | notnull | dflt_value | pk |
+-----+-------------+---------+---------+------------+----+
| 0   | destination | TEXT    | 0       |            | 0  |
| 1   | netmask     | TEXT    | 0       |            | 0  |
| 2   | gateway     | TEXT    | 0       |            | 0  |
| 3   | source      | TEXT    | 0       |            | 0  |
| 4   | flags       | INTEGER | 0       |            | 0  |
| 5   | interface   | TEXT    | 0       |            | 0  |
| 6   | mtu         | INTEGER | 0       |            | 0  |
| 7   | metric      | INTEGER | 0       |            | 0  |
| 8   | type        | TEXT    | 0       |            | 0  |
+-----+-------------+---------+---------+------------+----+
osquery> .exit
$

The shell does not keep much state or connect to the osqueryd daemon.If you would like to run queries and log changes to the output or log operating system events, consider deploying a query schedule using osqueryd.

Note: Event publishers are not started by default. To enable event-based tables, use the flag —disable_events=false.

osqueryi uses an in-memory database by default. To connect to an existing events database, use the flag —database_path=/var/osquery/osquery.db (only one process may attach to the database; see Checking the database sanity).