How does Splunk use wildcards for inputs in the backend?

neelamssantosh — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 13:19:21 GMT

/var/log/…/apache.log matches the files in Splunk, but through either python or unix CLI, I am unable to perform the operation.

What/How exactly does Splunk function using wildcards in the backend?

Re: How does Splunk use wildcards for inputs in the backend?

dwaddle — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 03:38:15 GMT

That is correct - the /.../ construct is not a part of standard *nix glob patterns. The best way to explain it is that when you use wildcards in an input stanza, splunk transmogrifies those into whitelist regexes. So for example:

[monitor:///var/log/.../apache.log]

will get transmogrified into something similar to:

[monitor:///var/log]
whitelist=^/var/log/(.*)/apache\.log$

and then this alternate-reality version is processed just like Splunk does any other monitor stanza with a whitelist. Similarly, * in a monitor stanza is transmogrified something like:

[monitor:///var/log/httpd/access*.log]

becomes

[monitor:///var/log/httpd]
whitelist=^/var/log/httpd/access[^/]*\.log$

These are probably not 100% exact representations of how the translation from glob-like-pattern to regex occurs but they are good examples of the concepts.

topic How does Splunk use wildcards for inputs in the backend? in Getting Data In

How does Splunk use wildcards for inputs in the backend?

Re: How does Splunk use wildcards for inputs in the backend?