topic Re: Monitoring the content of a configuration file in Getting Data In

Monitoring the content of a configuration file

u568675 — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 21:50:40 GMT

I have a client that wants to monitor a system configuration file and specifically the content of the configuration file. They would like to index the content of a file and ultimately the only index the content again when the configuration file content changes.
We've tied using "fschange" but it's only outputting the file characteristics (see below) not the file content

Tue Jun 4 10:07:32 2019 action=add, path="///opt/mapr/spark/spark-2.2.1/conf/spark-defaults.conf", isdir=0, size=1957, gid=1446, uid=930, modtime="Wed Jan 23 15:58:32 2019", mode="rw-r--r--", hash=***

the inputs.conf configuration setting for "fschange" that we've tried are:
[fschange:///opt/mapr/spark/spark-2.2.1/conf/spark-defaults.conf]

index = _audit
recurse = false
followLinks = false
signedaudit = false
fullEvent = true
sendEventMaxSize = 1048576
delayInMills = 1000***

Has someone successfully index a configuration file content and re-indexed the configuration content when the configuration content changes?

Re: Monitoring the content of a configuration file

MuS — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 01:39:59 GMT

Hi u568675,

Well, that is what fschange (which btw is deprecated since Splunk 5.x) does:

[fschange:<path>]
* Monitors changes (such as additions, updates, and deletions) to this
  directory and any of its sub-directories.

Source https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/admin/Inputsconf .

If you want to index config files and index when they change, you need to add a monitor stanza and add the option crcSalt = <SOURCE> to the monitor. This will re-index the file once it changes.

Hope this helps ...

cheers, MuS

Re: Monitoring the content of a configuration file

evania — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 15:49:01 GMT

Hi @u568675 ,

Did you have a chance to check out an answer? If it worked, please resolve this post by approving it! If your problem is still not solved, keep us updated so that someone else can help you.

Thanks for posting!

Re: Monitoring the content of a configuration file

u568675 — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 18:27:45 GMT

We added crcSalt = to the input stanza and tested by modifying the configuration file but unfortunately it do not generate an event.

Re: Monitoring the content of a configuration file

MuS — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 21:36:35 GMT

Did you also change the stanza from [fschange:// to be [monitor:// as mentioned in my answer?

cheers, MuS