SPLK-2002 Splunk Enterprise Certified Architect Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

The splunk edit licenser-localslave command is used to convert a Splunk instance to a license slave. This command will configure the Splunk instance to contact a license master and receive a license from it. This command should be used when the Splunk instance is part of a distributed deployment and needs to share a license pool with other instances. The splunk add licenses command is used to add a license to a Splunk instance, not to convert it to a license slave. The splunk list licenser-slaves command is used to list the license slaves that are connected to a license master, not to convert a Splunk instance to a license slave. The splunk list licenser-localslave command is used to list the license master that a license slave is connected to, not to convert a Splunk instance to a license slave. For more information, see Configure license slaves in the Splunk documentation.

The correct action to take first if a deployment client is not updating apps is to choose a corrective action based on the splunkd.log of the deployment client. This log file contains information about the communication between the deployment server and the deployment client, and it can help identify the root cause of the problem1. The other actions may or may not help, depending on the situation, but they are not the first steps to take. Choosing a longer phone home interval may reduce the load on the deployment server, but it will also delay the updates for the deployment clients2. Increasing the number of CPU cores or the amount of memory for the deployment server may improve its performance, but it will not fix the issue if the problem is on the deployment client side3. Therefore, option C is the correct answer, and options A, B, and D are incorrect.

1: Troubleshoot deployment server issues 2: Configure deployment clients 3: Hardware and software requirements for the deployment server

 The following artifacts are included in a Splunk diag file:

Internal logs. These are the log files that Splunk generates to record its own activities, such as splunkd.log, metrics.log, audit.log, and others. These logs can help troubleshoot Splunk issues and monitor Splunk performance.

Configuration files. These are the files that Splunk uses to configure various aspects of its operation, such as server.conf, indexes.conf, props.conf, transforms.conf, and others. These files can help understand Splunk settings and behavior. The following artifacts are not included in a Splunk diag file:

OS settings. These are the settings of the operating system that Splunk runs on, such as the kernel version, the memory size, the disk space, and others. These settings are not part of the Splunk diag file, but they can be collected separately using the diag --os option.

Customer data. These are the data that Splunk indexes and makes searchable, such as the rawdata and the tsidx files. These data are not part of the Splunk diag file, as they may contain sensitive or confidential information. For more information, see Generate a diagnostic snapshot of your Splunk Enterprise deployment in the Splunk documentation.

Increasing the number of parallel ingestion pipelines in server.conf is most likely to improve indexing performance when indexing is slow and real-time search results are delayed in a Splunk environment with two indexers and one search head. The parallel ingestion pipelines allow Splunk to process multiple data streams simultaneously, which increases the indexing throughput and reduces the indexing latency. Increasing the maximum number of hot buckets in indexes.conf will not improve indexing performance, but rather increase the disk space consumption and the bucket rolling time. Decreasing the maximum size of the search pipelines in limits.conf will not improve indexing performance, but rather reduce the search performance and the search concurrency. Decreasing the maximum concurrent scheduled searches in limits.conf will not improve indexing performance, but rather reduce the search capacity and the search availability. For more information, see Configure parallel ingestion pipelines in the Splunk documentation.

All of the forwarders would still be phoning home to the old deployment server, because the forwarders are configured to use the old deployment server in $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local. This is the local configuration directory that contains the settings that override the default settings in $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/default. The deploymentclient.conf file in the local directory specifies the targetUri of the deployment server that the forwarder contacts for configuration updates and apps. If the forwarders have the old deployment server’s targetUri in the local directory, they will ignore the updated deploymentclient.conf file that was deployed by the old deployment server, because the local settings have higher precedence than the deployed settings. To fix this issue, the forwarders should either remove the deploymentclient.conf file from the local directory, or update it with the new deployment server’s targetUri. Option C is the correct answer. Option A is incorrect because a version mismatch between the forwarders and the new deployment server would not prevent the forwarders from phoning home to the new deployment server, as long as they are compatible versions. Option B is incorrect because the new deployment server is configured and running, and there is no indication that it is not accepting connections from the forwarders. Option D is incorrect because the pass4SymmKey is the shared secret key that the deployment server and the forwarders use to authenticate each other. It does not affect the forwarders’ ability to phone home to the new deployment server, as long as it is the same on both sides12

1: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/9.1.2/Updating/Configuredeploymentclients  2: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/9.1.2/Admin/Wheretofindtheconfigurationfiles

The following clarification steps should be taken if apps are not appearing on a deployment client:

Check serverclass.conf of the deployment server. This file defines the server classes and the apps and configurations that they should receive from the deployment server. Make sure that the deployment client belongs to the correct server class and that the server class has the desired apps and configurations.

Check deploymentclient.conf of the deployment client. This file specifies the deployment server that the deployment client contacts and the client name that it uses. Make sure that the deployment client is pointing to the correct deployment server and that the client name matches the server class criteria.

Search for relevant events in splunkd.log of the deployment server. This file contains information about the deployment server activities, such as sending apps and configurations to the deployment clients, detecting client check-ins, and logging any errors or warnings. Look for any events that indicate a problem with the deployment server or the deployment client.

Checking the content of SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps of the deployment server is not a necessary clarification step, as this directory does not contain the apps and configurations that are distributed to the deployment clients. The apps and configurations for the deployment server are stored in SPLUNK_HOME/etc/deployment-apps. For more information, see Configure deployment server and clients in the Splunk documentation.

According to the Splunk documentation1, when migrating an indexer cluster from single-site to multi-site, you must remove the existing single-site attributes from the server.conf file of each peer node. These attributes include replication_factor, search_factor, and cluster_label. You must also restart each peer node after removing the attributes. The other options are false because:

Multi-site policies will apply only to the data created after migration, unless you configure the manager node to convert legacy buckets to multi-site1.

All peer nodes do not need to run the same version of Splunk, as long as they are compatible with the manager node2.

Single-site buckets can be converted to multi-site buckets by changing the constrain_singlesite_buckets setting in the manager node’s server.conf file to "false"1.