Send logs to Splunk HTTP Event Collector
Splunk output plugin allows to ingest your records into a Splunk Enterprise service through the HTTP Event Collector (HEC) interface.
To get more details about how to setup the HEC in Splunk please refer to the following documentation: Splunk / Use the HTTP Event Collector
Splunk output plugin supports TTL/SSL, for more details about the properties available and general configuration, please refer to the TLS/SSL section.
In order to insert records into a Splunk service, you can run the plugin from the command line or through the configuration file:
The splunk plugin, can read the parameters from the command line in two ways, through the -p argument (property), e.g:
In your main configuration file append the following Input & Output sections:
By default, the Splunk output plugin nests the record under the event
key in the payload sent to the HEC. It will also append the time of the record to a top level time
key.
If you would like to customize any of the Splunk event metadata, such as the host or target index, you can set Splunk_Send_Raw On
in the plugin configuration, and add the metadata as keys/values in the record. Note: with Splunk_Send_Raw
enabled, you are responsible for creating and populating the event
section of the payload.
For example, to add a custom index and hostname:
This will create a payload that looks like:
For more information on the Splunk HEC payload format and all event meatadata Splunk accepts, see here: http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Data/AboutHEC
If the option splunk_send_raw
has been enabled, the user must take care to put all log details in the event field, and only specify fields known to Splunk in the top level event, if there is a mismatch, Splunk will return a HTTP error 400.
Consider the following example:
splunk_send_raw off
splunk_send_raw on
For up to date information about the valid keys in the top level object, refer to the Splunk documentation:
http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Data/AboutHEC
With Splunk version 8.0> you can also use the Fluent Bit Splunk output plugin to send data to metric indices. This allows you to perform visualizations, metric queries, and analysis with other metrics you may be collecting. This is based off of Splunk 8.0 support of multi metric support via single JSON payload, more details can be found on Splunk's documentation page
Sending to a Splunk Metric index requires the use of Splunk_send_raw
option being enabled and formatting the message properly. This includes three specific operations
Nest metric events under a "fields" property
Add metric_name:
to all metrics
Add index, source, sourcetype as fields in the message
The following configuration gathers CPU metrics, nests the appropriate field, adds the required identifiers and then sends to Splunk.
Key
Description
default
Host
IP address or hostname of the target Splunk service.
127.0.0.1
Port
TCP port of the target Splunk service.
8088
Splunk_Token
Specify the Authentication Token for the HTTP Event Collector interface.
Splunk_Send_Raw
When enabled, the record keys and values are set in the top level of the map instead of under the event key.
note: refer to the Sending Raw Events section below for more details to make this option work properly.
Off
HTTP_User
Optional username for Basic Authentication on HEC
HTTP_Passwd
Password for user defined in HTTP_User