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

The structure of a Splunk configuration file


The .conf files used by Splunk look very similar to .ini files. A simple configuration looks like this:

#settings for foo 
[foo] 
bar=1 
la = 2 

Let's look at the following couple of definitions:

  • stanza: A stanza is used to group attributes. Our stanza in this example is [foo]. A common synonym for this is section. Keep in mind the following key points:
    • A stanza name must be unique in a single file
    • The order does not matter
  • attribute: An attribute is a name-value pair. Our attributes in this example are bar and la. A common synonym is parameter. Keep in mind the following key points:
    • The attribute name must not contain whitespace or the equals sign.
    • Each attribute belongs to the stanza defined previously; if the attribute appears before all stanzas, the attribute belongs to the stanza [default].
    • The attribute name must be unique in a single stanza but not in a configuration.
    • Each attribute must have its own line and can only use one line. Spaces around...