Configuring a light forwarder to monitor the Windows event log from the CLI

[olopez77]

What are the CLI commands to configure Windows event log (Application, Security, System) monitoring on a light forwarder?

[araitz]

Your best bet is to do this at install via msiexec:

http://www.splunk.com/base/Documentation/latest/Installation/InstallonWindowsviathecommandline#Suppo...

Use these flags to specify whether or not Splunk should index a particular Windows event log.

    * WINEVENTLOGAPPCHECK=1/0, off by default
    * WINEVENTLOGSECCHECK=1/0, off by default
    * WINEVENTLOGSYSCHECK=1/0, off by default
    * WINEVENTLOGFWDCHECK=1/0, off by default
    * WINEVENTLOGSETCHECK=1/0, off by default 

[gkanapathy]

There aren't any. You should configure this either via editing configuration files (or having the files pushed out from Deployment Server or similar.)

I recommend always using configuration files for Splunk in preference to the CLI. Besides the fact that many options are unavailable via CLI, you can also define the desired configuration more precisely regardless of the initial state of the system. Most deployment management systems (including Splunk Deployment Server) work much better with configuration files than running commands, as file copying is idempotent.

I only use CLI for start, stop, setting user passwords (sometimes), and setting boot-start (sometimes), and one-time testing using the "oneshot" input.