Scheduled Alert using crontab shows next run time inconsistent with timezone on the Search Head

justinhaynes — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 02:35:29 GMT

I scheduled a search to run at 0 2,8,14,20 * * *

The timezone of the search head is UTC. Therefore I expect the next run tiem to be 2am UTC, yet Splunk says the next run time would be 6am UTC.

How could this be? And where is this configured?

I suspect there is a setting somewhere which is making the cron expressions be interpreted in US Eastern Time. Since we are observing Daylight Savings Time, Eastern Daylight Time would be UTC-4.

The documentation (Use cron expressions for alert scheduling - Splunk Documentation) says "The Splunk cron analyzer defaults to the timezone where the search head is configured. This can be verified or changed by going to Settings > Searches, reports, and alerts > Scheduled time."

I find no "Scheduled Time" under Settings > Search, reports and alerts.

I did post this to the feedback on that documentation page in case it is actually inaccurate.

Where can I check and verify?

Thanks!

Re: Scheduled Alert using crontab shows next run time inconsistent with timezone on the Search Head

VatsalJagani — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 05:12:26 GMT

@justinhaynes - As per my understanding.

If the scheduled alert is configured with a specific user, it uses the user's configured timezone.
If the scheduled alert shows "nobody" as the username then it uses Search Head's timezone as default as described by the doc.

Please kindly check if you have set the alert then your configured timezone is what you are observing (EDT).

I hope this helps!!!

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Scheduled Alert using crontab shows next run time inconsistent with timezone on the Search Head

Re: Scheduled Alert using crontab shows next run time inconsistent with timezone on the Search Head