SPLK-1005 Splunk Cloud Certified Admin Questions and Answers

When a forwarder phones home to a Deployment Server, it compares the checksum of its apps with those on the Deployment Server. If the checksums do not match, the app on the forwarder is always deleted and re-downloaded from the Deployment Server. This ensures that the forwarder has the most current and correct version of the app as dictated by the Deployment Server.

Splunk Documentation Reference: Deployment Server Overview

In Splunk Cloud, when there is a need for a change request that might involve modifying settings, upgrading, or other actions requiring Splunk Support, the process typically requires submitting a support case.

D. Any person with the appropriate entitlement: This is the correct answer. Any individual who has the necessary permissions or entitlements within the Splunk environment can submit a support case. This includes administrators or users who have been granted the ability to engage with Splunk Support. The request does not necessarily have to come from a Certified Splunk Cloud Administrator or the infrastructure owner; rather, it can be submitted by anyone with the correct level of access.

Splunk Documentation References:

Submitting a Splunk Support Case

Managing User Roles and Entitlements

In Splunk, to configure a TCP input on a specific port and restrict traffic from certain IP addresses, you can use the acceptFrom setting. The correct stanza that enables a TCP input on port 1025 and allows traffic from all IP addresses except 10.5.5.1 would look like this:

[tcp://1025]

acceptFrom = !10.5.5.1

Here, !10.5.5.1 denotes that traffic from this IP should be denied, while all other IP addresses are allowed. Therefore, Option B is correct.

Splunk Documentation Reference: Inputs.conf - acceptFrom

Intermediate Forwarders are special types of forwarders that sit between Universal Forwarders and indexers to perform additional processing tasks such as routing, filtering, or load balancing data before it reaches the indexers.

B. All Intermediate Forwarders must be Heavy Forwarders is the correct answer. Heavy Forwarders are the only type of forwarder that can perform the necessary tasks required of an Intermediate Forwarder, such as parsing data, applying transformations, and routing based on specific rules. Universal Forwarders are lightweight and cannot perform these complex tasks, thus cannot serve as Intermediate Forwarders.

Splunk Documentation References:

Intermediate Forwarders

In Splunk Cloud, only apps that have been certified and vetted by Splunk are supported. This is because Splunk Cloud is a managed service, and Splunk ensures that all apps meet specific security, performance, and compatibility requirements before they can be installed. This certification process guarantees that the apps won’t negatively impact the overall environment, ensuring a stable and secure cloud service.

Self-service installation is available, but it is limited to apps that are certified for Splunk Cloud. Non-certified apps cannot be installed directly; they require a review and approval process by Splunk support.

Splunk Cloud Reference: Refer to Splunk’s documentation on app installation and the list of Cloud-vetted apps available on Splunkbase to understand which apps can be installed in Splunk Cloud.

Source:

Splunk Docs: About apps in Splunk Cloud

Splunkbase: Splunk Cloud Apps

Explanation: In Splunk Cloud, expired events can be archived to customer-managed storage solutions, such as on-premises storage. This allows organizations to retain data beyond the standard retention period if needed. [Reference: Splunk Docs on data archiving in Splunk Cloud]

A private app in Splunk is one that is created and used within a specific organization, and is not publicly available in the Splunkbase app store.

C. An app that is created and used only by a specific organization is the correct answer. This type of app is developed internally and used by a particular organization, often tailored to meet specific internal needs. It is not shared with other organizations and remains private within that organization’s Splunk environment.

Splunk Documentation References:

Private Apps in Splunk

The best approach to meet the requirements of the marketing department is to create a new role that inherits the user role but with restricted access to only the marketing_data index. This setup allows users to perform searches and view dashboards while ensuring they cannot access other indexes such as those containing security or operations data.

Splunk Documentation Reference: Splunk Role-based Access Control

During the input phase in Splunk, the system processes incoming data by first setting the character encoding of the data. This step ensures that the data is correctly interpreted by Splunk, allowing it to be parsed and processed properly later in the pipeline. Other options describe actions that occur during later phases, such as parsing and indexing.

Splunk Documentation Reference: How data moves through the data pipeline

When a forwarder is unable to send data to indexers, it queues the data in memory and optionally on disk. The setting used for the disk queue is persistentQueueSize. This configuration defines the size of the disk queue that stores data temporarily on the forwarder when it cannot immediately forward the data to an indexer.

Splunk Documentation Reference: Configure forwarding and receiving in Splunk

Explanation: Any modifications in capacity or configurations within Splunk Cloud require an official support ticket, as they are managed by Splunk Cloud support teams to ensure consistent and secure changes. [Reference: Splunk Docs on Splunk Cloud support requests]

By default, the sc_admin role in Splunk Cloud is granted several important capabilities, including:

indexes_edit: The ability to create, edit, and manage indexes.

fsh_manage: Manage full-stack monitoring integrations.

admin_all_objects: Full administrative control over all objects in Splunk.

can_delete: The ability to delete events using the delete command.

Option C correctly lists these default capabilities for the sc_admin role.

Splunk Documentation Reference: User roles and capabilities

The correct monitor statement that will capture all variations of the syslog file paths across different systems is [monitor:///var/log/network/syslog*/linux_secure/*].

This configuration works because:

syslog* matches directories that start with "syslog" (like syslog01, syslog02, etc.).

The wildcard * after linux_secure/ will capture all files within that directory, including different filenames like syslog.log and syslog.log.2020090801.

This setup will ensure that all the necessary files from the different syslog hosts are monitored.

Splunk Documentation Reference: Monitor files and directories

Explanation: For setting up a deployment client, the correct stanza syntax in inputs.conf includes specifying targetUri with the port 8089, which is the management port for Splunk instances, not the data port 9997. [Reference: Splunk Docs on deployment server configurations]

Explanation: [monitor:///var/log/httpd-[0-9].log] is a valid path and syntax for inputs.conf to monitor files ending in .log under /var/log, with other correct index, sourcetype, and host settings specified. [Reference: Splunk Docs on monitor stanzas]

Explanation: Placing configuration overrides in the local folder within a custom app allows for easy maintenance and ensures that these overrides are preserved during upgrades, as files in default are overwritten. [Reference: Splunk Docs on configuration file precedence]

To mask unstructured data before sending it to Splunk Cloud, the SEDCMD should be configured in the props.conf file on a Heavy Forwarder. The Heavy Forwarder is responsible for data parsing and transformation before forwarding the data to Splunk Cloud. This ensures that sensitive data is masked before it reaches the indexing stage.

Splunk Documentation Reference: Using SEDCMD to Mask Data

Explanation: During the input phase, Splunk assigns metadata fields such as sourcetype, host, and source, which are critical for data categorization and routing. [Reference: Splunk Docs on data ingestion stages]

The recommended approach for setting the host values based on their origin when files from multiple systems are stored on a centralized log server is to use the host_segment setting. This setting allows you to dynamically set the host value based on a specific segment of the file path, which can be particularly useful when organizing logs from different servers into directories.

Splunk Documentation Reference: Inputs.conf - host_segment

The followTail attribute in inputs.conf controls how Splunk processes existing content in a monitored file.

D. Prevents pre-existing content in a file from being ingested: This is the correct answer. When followTail = true is set, Splunk will ignore any pre-existing content in a file and only start monitoring from the end of the file, capturing new data as it is added. This is useful when you want to start monitoring a log file but do not want to index the historical data that might be present in the file.

A. Pauses a file monitor if the queue is full: Incorrect, this is not related to the followTail attribute.

B. Only creates a tail checkpoint of the monitored file: Incorrect, while a tailing checkpoint is created for state tracking, followTail specifically refers to skipping the existing content.

C. Ingests a file starting with new content and then reading older events: Incorrect, followTail does not read older events; it skips them.

Splunk Documentation References:

followTail Attribute Documentation

Monitoring Files

These answers align with Splunk's best practices and available documentation on managing and configuring Splunk environments.

In Splunk, when configuring file and directory monitor inputs, several settings are available that control how data is indexed and processed. These settings are defined in the inputs.conf file. Among the given options:

host: Specifies the hostname associated with the data. It can be set to a static value, or dynamically assigned using settings like host_regex or host_segment.

index: Specifies the index where the data will be stored.

sourcetype: Defines the data type, which helps Splunk to correctly parse and process the data.

TCP_Routing: Used to route data to specific indexers in a distributed environment based on TCP routing rules.

host_regex: Allows you to extract the host from the path or filename using a regular expression.

host_segment: Identifies the segment of the directory structure (path) to use as the host.

Given the options:

Option B is correct because it includes host, index, sourcetype, TCP_Routing, host_regex, and host_segment. These are all valid settings for file and directory monitor inputs in Splunk.

Splunk Documentation References:

Monitor Inputs (inputs.conf)

Host Setting in Inputs

TCP Routing in Inputs

By referring to the Splunk documentation on configuring inputs, it's clear that Option B aligns with the valid settings used for file and directory monitoring, making it the correct choice.