Application Without Authentication

srussellnpr — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 23:23:12 GMT

Could I create an application in splunk that requires no authentication? Since splunk already lives on our intranet, I'd like to give users access to dashboards without requiring them to log in.

Re: Application Without Authentication

southeringtonp — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 00:18:18 GMT

Yes. There are a few things you can do.

Here's an example site (from the guys who do the SplunkTalk podcast):
http://bit.ly/splunktalkanalytics

Take a look at this video blog post:
http://blogs.splunk.com/2010/09/27/video-glimpse-into-splunktalk-podcast-analytics-insecure-login-dashboard-tricks/

The gist is that you can use "insecure" authentication, and embed login credentials into the URL. Then, create a dedicated role for that user, giving it access to on the indexes, search commands, etc. that it actually needs. Maybe even assign a search filter. Also, create a dedicated search app, with just the dashboards you need, and make that the default for the user. Using a separate, stripped-down search head can also help limit your attack surface.

If you want to use always-on displays, the timeouts can be a problem as well, so see this thread:
http://answers.splunk.com/questions/7233/user-specific-browser-session-timeout

Remember the common tradeoffs between security and usability apply, so doing this of course involves a bit of additional risk. Provided you're ok with that, this should get you started.

Re: Application Without Authentication

srussellnpr — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:06:33 GMT

You're awesome southeringtonp!

Re: Application Without Authentication

woodcock — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 20:21:41 GMT

The first 2 links are dead; is there an archive anywhere?

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Application Without Authentication

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