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

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.0.5/Admin/Inputsconf

[tcp://:]

*Configures the input to listen on a specific TCP network port.

*If a makes a connection to this instance, the input uses this stanza to configure itself.

*If you do not specify , this stanza matches all connections on the specified port.

*Generates events with source set to "tcp:", for example: tcp:514

*If you do not specify a sourcetype, generates events with sourcetype set to "tcp-raw"

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

Splunk checks role-to-group mapping only during user login for external authentication (e.g., LDAP, SAML). Users already logged in will continue using their previously assigned roles until they log out and log back in.

The changes to role mapping do not disrupt ongoing sessions.

Incorrect Options:

B:Search is not disabled upon role updates.

C:This is incorrect since existing users are also updated upon the next login.

D:Role updates do not terminate ongoing sessions.

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Indexer/Setaretirementandarchivingpolicy

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/7.3.1/Data/Configurecharactersetencoding

"Configure character set encoding. Splunk software attempts to apply UTF-8 encoding to your scources by default. If a source foesn't use UTF-8 encoding or is a non-ASCII file, Splunk software tries to convert data from the source to UTF-8 encoding unless you specify a character set to use by setting the CHARSET key in the props.conf file."

https://www.splunk.com/en_us/blog/tips-and-tricks/what-is-this-fishbucket-thing.html

"Every Splunk instance has a fishbucket index, except the lightest of hand-tuned lightweight forwarders, and if you index a lot of files it can get quite large. As any other index, you can change the retention policy to control the size via indexes.conf"

Reference https://community.splunk.com/t5/Archive/How-to-reindex-data-from-a-forwarder/td-p/93310

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.2.2/Data/UsetheHTTPEventCollector

"The HTTP Event Collector (HEC) lets you send data and application events to a Splunk deployment over the HTTP and Secure HTTP (HTTPS) protocols. HEC uses a token-based authentication model. You can generate a token and then configure a logging library or HTTP client with the token to send data to HEC in a specific format. This process eliminates the need for a Splunk forwarder when you send application events."

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.

Referencehttps://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.2.3/Admin/Configurationparametersandthedatapipeline

 The parsing phase is the process of extracting fields and values from raw data. The parsing phase respects LINE_BREAKER, SHOULD_LINEMERGE, BREAK_ONLY_BEFORE_DATE, and all other line merging settings in props.conf. These settings determine how Splunk breaks the data into events based on certain criteria, such as timestamps or regular expressions. The event boundaries are defined by the props.conf file, which can be modified by the administrator. Therefore, the parsing phase is the last opportunity for defining event boundaries.

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.1.1/Data/Monitornetworkports

A Splunk deployment server is a system that distributes apps, configurations, and other assets to groups of Splunk Enterprise instances. You can use it to distribute updates to most types of Splunk Enterprise components: forwarders, non-clustered indexers, and search heads2.

A Splunk deployment server is available on every full Splunk Enterprise instance. To use it, you must activate it by placing at least one app into %SPLUNK_HOME%\etc\deployment-apps on the host you want to act as deployment server3.

A Splunk deployment server maintains the list of server classes and uses those server classes to determine what content to distribute to each client. A server class is a group of deployment clients that share one or more defined characteristics1.

A Splunk deployment client is a Splunk instance remotely configured by a deployment server. Deployment clients can be universal forwarders, heavy forwarders, indexers, or search heads. Each deployment client belongs to one or more server classes1.

A Splunk deployment app is a set of content (including configuration files) maintained on the deployment server and deployed as a unit to clients of a server class. A deployment app can be an existing Splunk Enterprise app or one developed solely to group some content for deployment purposes1.

Therefore, option C is correct, and the other options are incorrect.

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.0.3/Admin/Distdeploylicenses#Clustered_deployments_and_licensing_issues

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.0.5/Admin/Aboutlicenseviolations

"Enterprise Trial license. If you get five or more warnings in a rolling 30 days period, you are in violation of your license. Dev/Test license. If you generate five or more warnings in a rolling 30-day period, you are in violation of your license. Developer license. If you generate five or more warnings in a rolling 30-day period, you are in violation of your license. BUT for Free license. If you get three or more warnings in a rolling 30 days period, you are in violation of your license."

The correct answer is C. On Deployment Server, $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/deployment-apps.

A deployment server is a Splunk Enterprise instance that acts as a centralized configuration manager for any number of other instances, called “deployment clients”. A deployment client can be a universal forwarder, a non-clustered indexer, or a search head1.

A deployment app is a directory that contains any content that you want to download to a set of deployment clients. The content can include a Splunk Enterprise app, a set of Splunk Enterprise configurations, or other content, such as scripts, images, and supporting files2.

You create a deployment app by creating a directory for it on the deployment server. The default location is $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/deployment-apps, but this is configurable through the repositoryLocation attribute in serverclass.conf. Underneath this location, each app must have its own subdirectory. The name of the subdirectory serves as the app name in the forwarder management interface2.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. On Universal Forwarder, $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps. This is the location where the deployment app resides after it is downloaded from the deployment server to the universal forwarder. It is not the location of the app before it is deployed2.

B. On Deployment Server, $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps. This is the location where the apps that are specific to the deployment server itself reside. It is not the location where the deployment apps for the clients are stored2.

D. On Universal Forwarder, $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/deployment-apps. This is not a valid location for any app on a universal forwarder. The universal forwarder does not act as a deployment server and does not store deployment apps3.

This is because the input type is UDP, which is an unreliable protocol that does not guarantee delivery, order, or integrity of the data packets. UDP does not have any mechanism to resend or acknowledge the data packets, so if Splunk is restarted, any data that was in transit or in the buffer may be dropped and not indexed.

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.