Splunk SPLK-1003 - Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/7.0.3/Forwarding/Routeandfilterdatad#Perform_selective_indexing_and_forwarding

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.

A bucket is the object that stores events inside of an index. According to the Splunk documentation1, “An index is a collection of directories, also called buckets, that contain index files. Each bucket represents a specific time range.” A bucket can be in one of several states, such as hot, warm, cold, frozen, or thawed1. Buckets are managed by indexers or clusters of indexers1.

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.1.3/Security/ConfigureLDAPwithSplunkWeb

"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."

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.

Set the stanza to have a server value equal to a comma-separated list of IP addresses and indexer ports for each of the indexers in the environment. This is explained in the Splunk documentation1, which states:

To enable automatic load balancing, set the stanza to have a server value equal to a comma-separated list of IP addresses and indexer ports for each of the indexers in the environment. For example:

[tcpout] server=10.1.1.1:9997,10.1.1.2:9997,10.1.1.3:9997

The forwarder then distributes data across all of the indexers in the list.

In Splunk Enterprise, when knowledge bundles (which include lookup files, configurations, and other knowledge objects) are replicated between search heads and indexers, administrators can control the maximum size of lookup files that are eligible for replication.

The correct parameter to use is excludeReplicatedLookupSize, defined in distsearch.conf. This parameter specifies a maximum file size (in megabytes) beyond which lookup files are excluded from bundle replication. By setting this to 500, any lookup file larger than 500 MB will not be replicated to search peers.

This is especially important for performance optimization and preventing unnecessary network load during search head to indexer communication.

Example configuration (distsearch.conf):

[replicationSettings]

excludeReplicatedLookupSize = 500

Reference (Splunk Documentation):

distsearch.conf.spec and example → excludeReplicatedLookupSize

Splunk® Enterprise Distributed Search Manual → “Control knowledge bundle replication between search heads and indexers”

Splunk Admin Manual → “Prevent large lookup files from being replicated”

Splunk uses alayered configuration modelwhere settings are loaded in a specific order. This order determines which configuration takes precedence when multiple settings conflict. Atindex time(the point when data is parsed and indexed), the configuration precedence is clearly defined in the official documentation.

FromSplunk Docs(props.conf precedence):

Configuration file resolution order (highest to lowest precedence):

$SPLUNK_HOME/etc/users///local

$SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps//local

$SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps//default

$SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local

$SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/default

However, forindex-time configurations, a slight difference applies:

system/local and users/local areoften treated specially, butin practice and according to Splunk Docs, thesystem/localconfigs override apps/default, and so on.

InOption C, the correct precedence fromhighest to lowestis:

/etc/users/local (Highest)

/etc/system/default

/etc/apps/aaa/local

/etc/apps/zzz/default

/etc/system/local (Lowest of these listed)

Though system/local typically has high precedence,when users/local is involved, that is the ultimate override. Splunk Docs confirms this in:

Configuration file precedence

Configuration layering reference

Therefore, Option C reflects the correct Splunk configuration file precedence order at index time.

The correct answer is B. in props.conf:

[identity]

SEDCMD-redact_pw = s/password=([^,|/s]+)/ ####REACTED####/g

According to the Splunk documentation1, to redact sensitive data from raw events, you need to use the SEDCMD attribute in the props.conf file. The SEDCMD attribute applies a sed expression to the raw data before indexing. The sed expression can use the s command to replace a pattern with a substitution string. For example, the following sed expression replaces any occurrence of password= followed by any characters until a comma, whitespace, or slash with ####REACTED####:

s/password=([^,|/s]+)/ ####REACTED####/g

The g flag at the end means that the replacement is applied globally, not just to the first match.

Option A is incorrect because it uses the REGEX attribute instead of the SEDCMD attribute. The REGEX attribute is used to extract fields from events, not to modify them.

Option C is incorrect because it uses the transforms.conf file instead of the props.conf file. The transforms.conf file is used to define transformations that can be applied to fields or events, such as lookups, evaluations, or replacements. However, these transformations are applied after indexing, not before.

Option D is incorrect because it uses both the wrong attribute and the wrong file. There is no REGEX-redact_pw attribute in the transforms.conf file.