Splunk SPLK-1003 Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin Exam Practice Test

"You can map either users or groups, but not both. If you are using groups, all users must be members of an appropriate group. Groups inherit capabilities form the highest level role they're a member of." "If your LDAP environment does not have group entries, you can treat each user as its own group."

"A Splunk platform instance that responses to search requests from a search head. The term "Search peer" is usually synonymous with the indexer role in a distributed search topology..."

Add your data to Splunk Enterprise. With Splunk Enterprise, you can add data using Splunk Web or Splunk Apps. In addition to these methods, you also can use the following methods. -The Splunk Command Line Interface (CLI) -The inputs.conf configuration file. When you specify your inputs with Splunk Web or the CLI, the details are saved in a configuartion file on Splunk Enterprise indexer and heavy forwarder instances.

The deployer is a Splunk Enterprise instance that you use to distribute apps and certain other configuration updates to search head cluster members. The set of updates that the deployer distributes is called the configuration bundle. com/Documentation/Splunk/8.1.3/DistSearch/PropagateSHCconfigurationchanges#:~:text=The%20deployer%20is%20a%20Splunk,is%20called%20the%20configuration%20bundle.

First line says it all: "The deployment server distributes deployment apps to clients."

"Enterprise Trial license. If you get five or more warnings in a rolling 30 days period, you are in violation of your license. Dev/Test license. If you generate five or more warnings in a rolling 30-day period, you are in violation of your license. Developer license. If you generate five or more warnings in a rolling 30-day period, you are in violation of your license. BUT for Free license. If you get three or more warnings in a rolling 30 days period, you are in violation of your license."

"To determine the order of directories for evaluating configuration file precendence, Splunk software considers each file's context. Configuration files operate in either a global context or in the context of the current app and user"

REGEX =

* Enter a regular expression to operate on your data.

FORMAT =

* NOTE: This option is valid for both index-time and search-time field extraction. Index-time field extraction configuration require the FORMAT settings. The FORMAT settings is optional for search-time field extraction configurations.

* This setting specifies the format of the event, including any field names or values you want to add.

DEST_KEY =

* NOTE: This setting is only valid for index-time field extractions.

* Specifies where SPLUNK software stores the expanded FORMAT results in accordance with the REGEX match.

 The setting that allows the configuration of Splunk to allow events to span over more than one line is SHOULD_LINEMERGE. This setting determines whether consecutive lines from a single source should be concatenated into a single event. If SHOULD_LINEMERGE is set to true, Splunk will attempt to merge multiple lines into one event based on certain criteria, such as timestamps or regular expressions. Therefore, option A is the correct answer. References: Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin | Splunk, [Configure event line merging - Splunk Documentation]

Scroll down to section titled, How the cluster handles concurrent search quotas, "Overall search quota. This quota determines the maximum number of historical searches (combined scheduled and ad hoc) that the cluster can run concurrently. This quota is configured with max_Searches_per_cpu and related settings in limits.conf."

- Section: About channels and sending data

Sending events to HEC with indexer acknowledgment active is similar to sending them with the setting off. There is one crucial difference: when you have indexer acknowledgment turned on, you must specify a channel when you send events. The concept of a channel was introduced in HEC primarily to prevent a fast client from impeding the performance of a slow client. When you assign one channel per client, because channels are treated equally on Splunk Enterprise, one client can't affect another. You must include a matching channel identifier both when sending data to HEC in an HTTP request and when requesting acknowledgment that events contained in the request have been indexed. If you don't, you will receive the error message, "Data channel is missing." Each request that includes a token for which indexer acknowledgment has been enabled must include a channel identifier, as shown in the following example cURL statement, where represents the event data portion of the request

/Documentation/SplunkCloud/8.2.2106/Admin/ConcurrentLimits

"Set limits for concurrent scheduled searches. You must have the edit_search_concurrency_all and edit_search_concurrency_scheduled capabilities to configure these settings."

Reference

 The parsing phase is the process of extracting fields and values from raw data. The parsing phase respects LINE_BREAKER, SHOULD_LINEMERGE, BREAK_ONLY_BEFORE_DATE, and all other line merging settings in props.conf. These settings determine how Splunk breaks the data into events based on certain criteria, such as timestamps or regular expressions. The event boundaries are defined by the props.conf file, which can be modified by the administrator. Therefore, the parsing phase is the last opportunity for defining event boundaries.

The following items in the phases below are listed in the order Splunk applies them (ie LINE_BREAKER occurs before TRUNCATE).

Input phase

inputs.conf

props.conf

CHARSET

NO_BINARY_CHECK

CHECK_METHOD

CHECK_FOR_HEADER (deprecated)

PREFIX_SOURCETYPE

sourcetype

wmi.conf

regmon-filters.conf

Structured parsing phase

props.conf

INDEXED_EXTRACTIONS, and all other structured data header extractions

Parsing phase

props.conf

LINE_BREAKER, TRUNCATE, SHOULD_LINEMERGE, BREAK_ONLY_BEFORE_DATE, and all other line merging settings

TIME_PREFIX, TIME_FORMAT, DATETIME_CONFIG (datetime.xml), TZ, and all other time extraction settings and rules

TRANSFORMS which includes per-event queue filtering, per-event index assignment, per-event routing

SEDCMD

MORE_THAN, LESS_THAN

transforms.conf

stanzas referenced by a TRANSFORMS clause in props.conf

LOOKAHEAD, DEST_KEY, WRITE_META, DEFAULT_VALUE, REPEAT_MATCH

Immediately after installation, a universal forwarder will start generating internal Splunk logs that contain information about its own operation, such as configuration changes, data inputs, and forwarding activities1. These logs are stored in the $SPLUNK_HOME/var/log/splunk directory on the universal forwarder machine1. The universal forwarder will not automatically detect any indexers in its subnet and begin routing data, as it needs to be configured with the IP address and port number of the indexer or the deployment server2. The universal forwarder will not begin reading local files on its server, as it needs to be configured with the data inputs that specify which files or directories to monitor2. The universal forwarder will not send an email to the operator that the installation process has completed, as this is not a default behavior of the universal forwarder and would require additional configuration3.

"Specify how far (how many characters) into an event Splunk software should look for a timestamp." since TIME_PREFIX = ^ and timestamp is from 0-29 position, so D=30 will pick up the WHOLE timestamp correctly.

When there are conflicting settings within two or more configuration files, the setting with the highest precedence is used. The precedence of configuration files is determined by a combination of the file type, the directory location, and the alphabetical order of the file names.

This option corresponds to the file path “$SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps/splunk_TA_nginx/local/inputs.conf”. This is the configuration file that the user needs to edit to ingest the NGINX access logs to ensure it remains unaffected after upgrade. This is explained in the Splunk documentation, which states:

The local directory is where you place your customized configuration files. The local directory is empty when you install Splunk Enterprise. You create it when you need to override or add to the default settings in a configuration file. The local directory is never overwritten during an upgrade.

Adding further clarity and quoting same Splunk reference URL from @giubal"

"To keep configuration settings consistent across peer nodes, configuration files are managed from the cluster master, which pushes the files to the slave-app directories on the peer nodes. Files in the slave-app directories have the highest precedence in a cluster peer's configuration. Here is the expanded precedence order for cluster peers:

1.Slave-app local directories -- highest priority

2. System local directory

3. App local directories

4. Slave-app default directories

5. App default directories

6. System default directory --lowest priority

--Key configuration files are: inputs.conf controls how the forwarder collects data. outputs.conf controls how the forwarder sends data to an indexer or other forwarder server.conf for connection and performance tuning deploymentclient.conf for connecting to a deployment server

Specifies a comma-separated list of tcpout group names. Use this setting to selectively forward your data to specific indexers by specifying the tcpout groups that the forwarder should use when forwarding the data. Define the tcpout group names in the outputs.conf file in [tcpout:] stanzas. The groups present in defaultGroup in [tcpout] stanza in the outputs.conf file.

According to the Splunk documentation1, a heavy forwarder is a Splunk Enterprise instance that can parse and filter data before forwarding it to an indexer. A heavy forwarder can perform line breaking, which is the process of splitting incoming data into individual events based on a set of rules2. A heavy forwarder can also apply other transformations to the data, such as field extractions, event type matching, or masking sensitive data3.

Begin generating internal Splunk logs. Immediately after installation, a Universal Forwarder will start generating internal Splunk logs that contain information about its own operation, such as startup and shutdown events, configuration changes, data ingestion, and forwarding activities1. These logs are stored in the $SPLUNK_HOME/var/log/splunk directory on the Universal Forwarder machine2.

The possible causes of the load balancing issue on the Universal Forwarder are A and C. The receiving port and the DNS record are both factors that affect the ability of the Universal Forwarder to distribute data across multiple receivers. If the receiving port is not properly set up to listen on the right port, or if the DNS record used is not set up with a valid list of IP addresses, the Universal Forwarder might fail to connect to some or all of the receivers, resulting in poor load balancing.

splunk_server

The splunk server field contains the name of the Splunk server containing the event. Useful in a distributed Splunk environment. Example: Restrict a search to the main index on a server named remote. splunk_server=remote index=main 404

"Configure character set encoding. Splunk software attempts to apply UTF-8 encoding to your scources by default. If a source foesn't use UTF-8 encoding or is a non-ASCII file, Splunk software tries to convert data from the source to UTF-8 encoding unless you specify a character set to use by setting the CHARSET key in the props.conf file."

"When ingesting event data, the measured data volume is based on the new raw data that is placed into the indexing pipeline. Because the data is measured at the indexing pipeline, data that is filetered and dropped prior to indexing does not count against the license volume qota."

"You can specify a SEDCMD configuration in props.conf to address data that contains characters that the third-party server cannot process. "

Setting: ignoreOlderThan = Description: "Causes the input to stop checking files for updates if the file modification time has passed the threshold." Default: 0 (disabled)

--reset Reset the fishbucket for the given key or file in the btree. Resetting the checkpoint for an active monitor input reindexes data, resulting in increased license use. 1.1/Troubleshooting/CommandlinetoolsforusewithSupport

Users log on to the search head and run reports: – The search head dispatches searches to the peers – Peers run searches in parallel and return their portion of results – The search head consolidates the individual results and prepares reports

"You can group your search peers to facilitate searching on a subset of them. Groups of search peers are known as "distributed search groups." You specify distributed search groups in the distsearch.conf file"

nterprise

"You can collect data on the universal forwarder using several methods. Define inputs on the universal forwarder with the CLI. You can use the CLI to define inputs on the universal forwarder. After you define the inputs, the universal forwarder collects data based on those definitions as long as it has access to the data that you want to monitor. Define inputs on the universal forwarder with configuration files. If the input you want to configure does not have a CLI argument for it, you can configure inputs with configuration files. Create an inputs.conf file in the directory, $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local

"The data pipeline segments in depth. INPUT - In the input segment, Splunk software consumes data. It acquires the raw data stream from its source, breaks it into 64K blocks, and annotates each block with some metadata keys. The keys can also include values that are used internally, such as the character encoding of the data stream, and values that control later processing of the data, such as the index into which the events should be stored. PARSING Annotating individual events with metadata copied from the source-wide keys. Transforming event data and metadata according to regex transform rules."

Section titled, Configuration file directories, states "A detailed list of settings for each configuration file is provided in the .spec file names for that configuration file. You can find the latest version of the .spec and .example files in the $SPLUNK_HOME/etc system/README folder of your Splunk Enterprise installation..."

To verify the integrity of a local bucket. The command ./splunk check-integrity -bucketPath [bucket path] [-verbose] is used to verify the integrity of a local bucket by comparing the hashes stored in the l1Hashes and l2Hash files with the actual data in the bucket1. This command can help detect any tampering or corruption of the data.

The HTTP Event Collector (HEC) supports indexer acknowledgment to confirm event delivery. Each acknowledgment is associated with a unique GUID (Globally Unique Identifier).

GUID ensures events are not re-indexed in the case of retries.

Incorrect Options:

B, C, D: These are not valid channel values in HEC acknowledgments.

References:

Splunk Docs: Use indexer acknowledgment with HTTP Event Collector

SAML is an open standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between parties, especially between an identity provider and a service provider1. SAML supports multi-factor authentication by allowing the identity provider to require the user to present two or more factors of evidence to prove their identity2. For example, the user may need to enter a password and a one-time code sent to their phone, or scan their fingerprint and face.

-Scroll down to source =

*Default: the input file path

The fastest way to add data to your Splunk Cloud instance or Splunk Enterprise deployment is to use Splunk Web. After you access the Add Data page, choose one of three options for getting data into your Splunk platform deployment with Splunk Web: (1) Upload, (2) Monitor, (3) Forward The Upload option lets you upload a file or archive of files for indexing. When you choose Upload option, Splunk Web opens the upload process page. Monitor. For Splunk Enterprise installations, the Monitor option lets you monitor one or more files, directories, network streams, scripts, Event Logs (on Windows hosts only), performance metrics, or any other type of machine data that the Splunk Enterprise instance has access to.

"The Splunk platform collects remote Windows data for indexing in one of two ways: From Splunk forwarders, Using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). For Splunk Cloud deployments, you must use the Splunk Universal Forwarder on a Windows machines to montior remote Windows data."

The correct answer is C and D. A heavy forwarder and an indexer are the Splunk components that can break a stream of syslog inputs into individual events.

A universal forwarder is a lightweight agent that can forward data to a Splunk deployment, but it does not perform any parsing or indexing on the data. A search head is a Splunk component that handles search requests and distributes them to indexers, but it does not process incoming data.

A heavy forwarder is a Splunk component that can perform parsing, filtering, routing, and aggregation on the data before forwarding it to indexers or other destinations. A heavy forwarder can break a stream of syslog inputs into individual events based on the line breaker and should linemerge settings in the inputs.conf file1.

An indexer is a Splunk component that stores and indexes data, making it searchable. An indexer can also break a stream of syslog inputs into individual events based on the props.conf file settings, such as TIME_FORMAT, MAX_TIMESTAMP_LOOKAHEAD, and line_breaker2.

A Splunk component is a software process that performs a specific function in a Splunk deployment, such as data collection, data processing, data storage, data search, or data visualization.

Syslog is a standard protocol for logging messages from network devices, such as routers, switches, firewalls, or servers. Syslog messages are typically sent over UDP or TCP to a central syslog server or a Splunk instance.

Breaking a stream of syslog inputs into individual events means separating the data into discrete records that can be indexed and searched by Splunk. Each event should have a timestamp, a host, a source, and a sourcetype, which are the default fields that Splunk assigns to the data.

References:

1: Configure inputs using Splunk Connect for Syslog - Splunk Documentation

2: inputs.conf - Splunk Documentation

3: How to configure props.conf for proper line breaking … - Splunk Community

4: Reliable syslog/tcp input – splunk bundle style | Splunk

5: Configure inputs using Splunk Connect for Syslog - Splunk Documentation

6: About configuration files - Splunk Documentation

[7]: Configure your OSSEC server to send data to the Splunk Add-on for OSSEC - Splunk Documentation

[8]: Splunk components - Splunk Documentation

[9]: Syslog - Wikipedia

[10]: About default fields - Splunk Documentation