SPLK-1003 Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

The correct answer is C. Distributed search is the feature that allows search heads in a company’s European offices to search data in their New York offices. Distributed search also enables restricting access to certain indexers by using the splunk_server field or the server.conf file1.

Distributed search is a way to scale your Splunk deployment by separating the search management and presentation layer from the indexing and search retrieval layer. With distributed search, a Splunk instance called a search head sends search requests to a group of indexers, or search peers, which perform the actual searches on their indexes. The search head then merges the results back to the user2.

Distributed search has several use cases, such as horizontal scaling, access control, and managing geo-dispersed data. For example, users in different offices can search data across the enterprise or only in their local area, depending on their needs and permissions2.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Indexer clustering is a feature that replicates data across a group of indexers to ensure data availability and recovery. Indexer clustering does not directly affect distributed search, although search heads can be configured to search across an indexer cluster3.

B. LDAP control is a feature that allows Splunk to integrate with an external LDAP directory service for user authentication and role mapping. LDAP control does not affect distributed search, although it can be used to manage user access to data and searches.

D. Search head clustering is a feature that distributes the search workload across a group of search heads that share resources, configurations, and jobs. Search head clustering does not affect distributed search, although the search heads in a cluster can search across the same set of indexers.

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/9.0.0/DistSearch/Distributedsearchgroups

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."

The HTTP Event Collector (HEC) supports indexer acknowledgment to confirm event delivery. Each acknowledgment is associated with a uniqueGUID(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.

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.

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

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 beconfigured 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.

The Universal Forwarder (UF) handles data forwarding to indexers. When monitoring a continuous and high-volume syslog stream over TCP, the UF may not detect an end-of-file (EOF) condition, which is typicallyrequired to trigger load balancing between multiple indexers. This can result in the UF continuously sending data to a single indexer, potentially leading to uneven load distribution.

To address this, Splunk provides the forceTimebasedAutoLB setting in the outputs.conf configuration file. Enabling this setting allows the UF to switch between indexers at regular time intervals, regardless of EOF detection. This ensures a more balanced distribution of data across multiple indexers, even in scenarios with continuous data streams like syslog.

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.

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.

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.

According to the Splunk documentation1, to customize a configuration file, you need to create a new file with the same name in a local or app directory. Then, add the specific settings that you want to customize to the local configuration file. Never change or copy the configuration files in the default directory. The files in the default directory must remain intact and in their original location. The Splunk Enterprise upgrade process overwrites the default directory.

To deploy configuration files to deployment clients, you need to use the deployment server. The deployment server is a Splunk Enterprise instance that distributes content and updates to deployment clients2. The deployment server uses a directory called $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/deployment-apps to store the apps and configuration files that itdeploys to clients2. To update the configuration files in this directory, you need to edit them manually and then run the command $SPLUNK_HOME/bin/sp1unk reload deploy—server to make the changes take effect2.

Therefore, option A is incorrect because it does not include the reload command. Option B is incorrect because it makes the change on a deployment client instead of the deployment server. Option D is incorrect because it changes the default directory instead of the local directory.

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.0.1/Forwarding/Aboutforwardingandreceivingdata

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Forwarder/8.1.1/Forwarder/Configureforwardingwithoutputs.conf#:~:text=compressed%3Dtrue%20This%20tells%20the,the%20forwarder%20sends%20raw%20data.

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.1.0/Data/ConsiderationsfordecidinghowtomonitorWindowsdata

"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."

To remove a search peer from a search head in a distributed search environment using the CLI, Splunk provides the splunk remove search-server command. This command is executed on the search head and removes the specified search peer from its configuration.

The correct syntax for this command is:

splunk remove search-server -auth <user>: :

Where:

<user>: are the credentials for the search head.

: specifies the management port of the search peer to be removed.

For example:

bash

CopyEdit

splunk remove search-server -auth admin:password 123.45.67.89:8089

This command removes the search peer from the search head's configuration. It's important to note that this action does not affect the search peer itself; it merely removes the association from the search head.

The correct answer is D. No, because the event time is greater than the retention time.

According to the Splunk documentation1, the frozenTimePeriodInSecs setting in indexes.conf determines how long Splunk software retains indexed data before deleting it or archiving it to a remote storage. The default value is 188697600 seconds, which is equivalent to six years. The setting can be overridden on a per-index basis.

In this case, the cat_facts index has a frozenTimePeriodInSecs setting of 2630000 seconds, which is equivalent to about 30 days. This means that any event that is older than 30 days from the current time will be removed from the index and will not be searchable.

The event timestamp was 3739283 seconds ago, which is equivalent to about 43 days. This means that the event is older than the retention time of the cat_facts index and will not be searchable.

The other settings in the stanza, such as maxHotSpanSecs and maxTota1DataSizeMB, do not affect the retention time of the events. They only affect the size and duration of the buckets that store the events.

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.0.5/Updating/Updateconfigurations First line says it all: "The deployment server distributes deployment apps to clients."

This is explained in the Splunk documentation1, which states:

If an indexer goes down during a search, the search head notifies you that the results might be incomplete. The search head does not attempt to re-run the search on another indexer.