Book Image

Implementing Splunk 7, Third Edition - Third Edition

Book Image

Implementing Splunk 7, Third Edition - Third Edition

Overview of this book

Splunk is the leading platform that fosters an efficient methodology and delivers ways to search, monitor, and analyze growing amounts of big data. This book will allow you to implement new services and utilize them to quickly and efficiently process machine-generated big data. We introduce you to all the new features, improvements, and offerings of Splunk 7. We cover the new modules of Splunk: Splunk Cloud and the Machine Learning Toolkit to ease data usage. Furthermore, you will learn to use search terms effectively with Boolean and grouping operators. You will learn not only how to modify your search to make your searches fast but also how to use wildcards efficiently. Later you will learn how to use stats to aggregate values, a chart to turn data, and a time chart to show values over time; you'll also work with fields and chart enhancements and learn how to create a data model with faster data model acceleration. Once this is done, you will learn about XML Dashboards, working with apps, building advanced dashboards, configuring and extending Splunk, advanced deployments, and more. Finally, we teach you how to use the Machine Learning Toolkit and best practices and tips to help you implement Splunk services effectively and efficiently. By the end of this book, you will have learned about the Splunk software as a whole and implemented Splunk services in your tasks at projects
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

An overview of Splunk.conf files


If you have spent any length of time in the filesystem investigating Splunk, you must have seen many different files ending in .conf. In this section, we will give you a quick overview of the most common .conf files. The official documentation is the best place to look for a complete reference to files and attributes.

The quickest way to find the official documentation is with your favorite search engine, by searching for Splunk filename.conf. For example, a search for Splunk props.conf pulled up (and will pull up) the Splunk documentation for props.conf first in every search engine I tested.

props.conf

The stanzas in props.conf define which events to match based on host, source, and sourcetype. These stanzas are merged into the master configuration based on the uniqueness of stanza and attribute names, as with any other configuration, but there are specific rules governing when each stanza is applied to an event and in what order. Stated as simply as possible...