Trying Splunk Cloud

I first used Splunk over ten years ago, but the first time I blogged about it was in 2008. I described how to install Splunk on Ubuntu 8.04. Today I decided to try the Splunk Cloud.

Splunk Cloud is the company's hosted Splunk offering, residing in Amazon Web Services (AWS). You can register for a 15 day free trial of Splunk Cloud that will index 5 GB per day.

If you would like to follow along, you will need a computer with a Web browser to interact with Splunk Cloud. (There may be ways to interact via API, but I do not cover that here.)

I will collect logs from a virtual machine running Debian 9, inside Oracle VirtualBox.

First I registered for the free Splunk Cloud trial online.

After I had a Splunk Cloud instance running, I consulted the documentation for Forward data to Splunk Cloud from Linux. I am running a "self-serviced" instance and not a "managed instance," i.e., I am the administrator in this situation.

I learned that I needed to install a software package called the Splunk Universal Forwarder on my Linux VM.

I downloaded a 64 bit Linux 2.6+ kernel .deb file to the /home/Downloads directory on the Linux VM.

richard@debian:~$ cd Downloads/

 richard@debian:~/Downloads$ ls

 splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-amd64.deb

 With elevation permissions I created a directory for the .deb, changed into the directory, and installed the .deb using dpkg.

 richard@debian:~/Downloads$ sudo bash
[sudo] password for richard: 

 root@debian:/home/richard/Downloads# mkdir /opt/splunkforwarder

 root@debian:/home/richard/Downloads# mv splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-amd64.deb /opt/splunkforwarder/

 root@debian:/home/richard/Downloads# cd /opt/splunkforwarder/

 root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder# ls

 splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-amd64.deb

 root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder# dpkg -i splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-amd64.deb 

 Selecting previously unselected package splunkforwarder.
(Reading database ... 141030 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-amd64.deb ...
Unpacking splunkforwarder (7.1.0) ...
Setting up splunkforwarder (7.1.0) ...
complete

 root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder# ls
bin        license-eula.txt
copyright.txt  openssl
etc        README-splunk.txt
ftr        share
include        splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-amd64.deb
lib        splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-x86_64-manifest

 Next I changed into the bin directory, ran the splunk binary, and accepted the EULA.

 root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder# cd bin/

 root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder/bin# ls

 btool   copyright.txt   openssl slim   splunkmon
btprobe   genRootCA.sh   pid_check.sh splunk   srm
bzip2   genSignedServerCert.sh  scripts splunkd
classify  genWebCert.sh   setSplunkEnv splunkdj

 root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder/bin# ./splunk start

 SPLUNK SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT

 THIS SPLUNK SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT ("AGREEMENT") GOVERNS THE LICENSING,
INSTALLATION AND USE OF SPLUNK SOFTWARE. BY DOWNLOADING AND/OR INSTALLING SPLUNK
SOFTWARE: (A) YOU ARE INDICATING THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND THIS

...

 Splunk Software License Agreement 04.24.2018

 Do you agree with this license? [y/n]: y

 Now I had to set an administrator password for this Universal Forwarder instance. I will refer to it as "mypassword" in the examples that follow although Splunk does not echo it to the screen below.

 This appears to be your first time running this version of Splunk.

 An Admin password must be set before installation proceeds.
Password must contain at least:
   * 8 total printable ASCII character(s).
Please enter a new password: 
Please confirm new password: 

 Splunk> Map. Reduce. Recycle.

 Checking prerequisites...
Checking mgmt port [8089]: open
Creating: /opt/splunkforwarder/var/lib/splunk
Creating: /opt/splunkforwarder/var/run/splunk
Creating: /opt/splunkforwarder/var/run/splunk/appserver/i18n
Creating: /opt/splunkforwarder/var/run/splunk/appserver/modules/static/css
Creating: /opt/splunkforwarder/var/run/splunk/upload
Creating: /opt/splunkforwarder/var/spool/splunk
Creating: /opt/splunkforwarder/var/spool/dirmoncache
Creating: /opt/splunkforwarder/var/lib/splunk/authDb
Creating: /opt/splunkforwarder/var/lib/splunk/hashDb
New certs have been generated in '/opt/splunkforwarder/etc/auth'.
Checking conf files for problems...
Done
Checking default conf files for edits...
Validating installed files against hashes from '/opt/splunkforwarder/splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-x86_64-manifest'
All installed files intact.
Done
All preliminary checks passed.

 Starting splunk server daemon (splunkd)...  
Done

With that done, I had to return to the Splunk Cloud Web site, and click the link to "Download Universal Forwarder Credentials" to download a splunkclouduf.spl file. As noted in the documentation, splunkclouduf.spl is a "credentials file, which contains a custom certificate for your Splunk Cloud deployment. The universal forwarder credentials are different from the credentials that you use to log into Splunk Cloud."

After downloading the splunkclouduf.spl file, I installed it. Note I pass "admin" as the user and "mypassword" as the password here. After installing I restart the universal forwarder.

root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder/bin# ./splunk install app /home/richard/Downloads/splunkclouduf.spl -auth admin:mypassword

App '/home/richard/Downloads/splunkclouduf.spl' installed 

root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder/bin# ./splunk restart
Stopping splunkd...
Shutting down.  Please wait, as this may take a few minutes.
.......
Stopping splunk helpers...

Done.

Splunk> Map. Reduce. Recycle.

Checking prerequisites...
Checking mgmt port [8089]: open
Checking conf files for problems...
Done
Checking default conf files for edits...
Validating installed files against hashes from '/opt/splunkforwarder/splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-x86_64-manifest'
All installed files intact.
Done
All preliminary checks passed.

Starting splunk server daemon (splunkd)...  
Done

It's time to take the final steps to get data into Splunk Cloud. I need to forwarder management in the Splunk Cloud Web site. Observe the input-prd-p-XXXX.cloud.splunk.com in the command. You obtain this (mine is masked with XXXX) from the URL for your Splunk Cloud deployment, e.g., https://prd-p-XXXX.cloud.splunk.com. Note that you have to add "input-" before the fully qualified domain name used by the Splunk Cloud instance.

root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder/bin# ./splunk set deploy-poll input-prd-p-XXXX.cloud.splunk.com:8089

Your session is invalid.  Please login.
Splunk username: admin
Password: 
Configuration updated.

Once again I restart the universal forwarder. I'm not sure if I could have done all these restarts at the end.

root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder/bin# ./splunk restart
Stopping splunkd...
Shutting down.  Please wait, as this may take a few minutes.
.......
Stopping splunk helpers...

Done.

Splunk> Map. Reduce. Recycle.

Checking prerequisites...
Checking mgmt port [8089]: open
Checking conf files for problems...
Done
Checking default conf files for edits...
Validating installed files against hashes from '/opt/splunkforwarder/splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-x86_64-manifest'
All installed files intact.
Done
All preliminary checks passed.

Starting splunk server daemon (splunkd)...  
Done

Finally I need to tell the universal forwarder to watch some logs on this Linux system. I tell it to monitor the /var/log directory and restart one more time.

root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder/bin# ./splunk add monitor /var/log
Your session is invalid.  Please login.
Splunk username: admin
Password: 
Added monitor of '/var/log'.

root@debian:/opt/splunkforwarder/bin# ./splunk restart

Stopping splunkd...
Shutting down.  Please wait, as this may take a few minutes.
...............
Stopping splunk helpers...

Done.

Splunk> Map. Reduce. Recycle.

Checking prerequisites...
Checking mgmt port [8089]: open
Checking conf files for problems...
Done
Checking default conf files for edits...
Validating installed files against hashes from '/opt/splunkforwarder/splunkforwarder-7.1.0-2e75b3406c5b-linux-2.6-x86_64-manifest'
All installed files intact.
Done
All preliminary checks passed.

Starting splunk server daemon (splunkd)...  
Done

At this point I return to the Splunk Cloud Web interface and click the "search" feature. I see Splunk is indexing some data.


I run a search for "host=debian" and find my logs.


Not too bad! Have you tried Splunk Cloud? What do you think? Leave me a comment below.

Update: I installed the Universal Forwarder on FreeBSD 11.1 using the method above (except with a FreeBSD .tgz) and everything seems to be working!

Comments

Jim C said…
I'd be interested to see your thoughts on Elastic, which is of course a direct competitor to Splunk, but using an open source technology stack. They also have a cloud service.

I believe that Splunk charge money per byte indexed to use their software, whereas Elastic charge per node in the cluster for optional support. This seems to be a significantly important difference for people who are not making a quantifiable return-on-investment with their log analytics, i.e. most sysadmin/security use-cases.
8:21 PM
Richard Bejtlich said…
I don't know enough to comment at the moment Jim. However this Reddit thread is interesting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/788uli/my_it_team_is_comparing_pros_and_cons_of_elk_as/#bottom-comments

In particular I liked this comment:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/788uli/my_it_team_is_comparing_pros_and_cons_of_elk_as/dosirhf/
8:25 PM
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