How to use Universal Forwarder to send logs to SIEM using UDP?

[rjk123]

I have a UF set to send logs to both Splunk IDX and SIEM, using the TCPOUT settings in outputs.conf, but this is sending via TCP and we want it to use UDP (due to high log rate). Can it be done?

There is no option for the tpcout stanza to set a protocol. So it is TCP only.

I found there is a syslog-out stanza for the outputs.conf file, which can use UDP or TCP, but that one also says it can't be used on UFs.

Am I stuck with TCP, or is there another way?

Thanks for any responses, Rod.

[gcusello · Accepted solution]

Hi @rjk123,

for my knowledge it isn't possible to use UDP protocol instead TCP to send logs using a Forwarder, the forwardring mechanism is fulli managed by Splunk and only uses the TCP protocol.

But if the problem is the rate for network bandwidth, on the Forwarder, you can define the max throughput (default 256 kb/s) setting the maxKBps.

But beware because in this way you could have some queues if the data grow.

for more infos see at https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/9.0.3/Admin/limitsconf

Ciao.

Giuseppe