global search on custom field

[ecoutinho]

The global search on all objects is not searching on custom fields' contents.

Environment

• Python version: 3.6
• NetBox version: 2.10.2

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a text custom field on Devices or Virtual Machine.
2. Create a new device with some text in that custom field
3. On the global search at the top, enter that text.

Expected Behavior

Return devices that have that text in the custom field.

Observed Behavior

That device was not returned.

[candlerb]

I'd say this is "feature request" rather than "bug". You can already search on individual custom fields by going to the Devices or Virtual Machines pages as appropriate.

To search for CF values, global search would have to add a new condition to every table it checks, something like:

netbox=# select d.id, kv.key, kv.value from dcim_device d, jsonb_each_text(d.custom_field_data) kv where value like '%ba%';
 id |  key  | value
----+-------+--------
  1 | label | foobar
  2 | label | bazqux
(2 rows)

By default this requires a full table scan:

netbox=# explain select d.id, kv.key, kv.value from dcim_device d, jsonb_each_text(d.custom_field_data) kv where value like '%ba%';
                                  QUERY PLAN
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Nested Loop  (cost=0.00..27.28 rows=360 width=68)
   ->  Seq Scan on dcim_device d  (cost=0.00..1.18 rows=18 width=36)
   ->  Function Scan on jsonb_each_text kv  (cost=0.00..1.25 rows=20 width=64)
         Filter: (value ~~ '%ba%'::text)

Hence making this efficient would require some funky indexing, possibly an expression index but I'm not sure how that works when searching multiple values from the same row.

[candlerb]

Possible duplicate of #1190

[DanSheps]

Duplicate of #1190

[DanSheps]

Thank you for submitting this issue, however it appears that this topic has already been raised. Please see issue #1190 for further discussion.