Is there a way to get the deployment server to work with hostname aliases for serverclass entries?

[a212830]

Hi,

Our private cloud uses a standard naming convention that isn't very useful, and people use aliases to make the hosts meaningful. Is there a way to get the deployment server to recognize these aliases? I tried entering them in the serverclass, and they are just ignored.

[MuS]

nice - the docs say

 clientName = deploymentClient
 * Takes precedence over DNS names.

so this should work, but you should use deploymentclient.conf.

cheers, MuS

[sloshburch]

Converted this to the answer. You should use the clientName field to endow randomly assigned hostnames with a meaningful name. You can take this further by defining your own naming convention so your serverclass can have wildcard matching for sending classes based on the naming convention (and therefore based on the function or data points you need to collect).

[MuS]

Hi a212830,

messy solution: add the aliases to /etc/hosts or the corresponding windows file.
clean solution: ask your network / DNS team to create CNAME's for the private cloud hosts and use them.

Hope this helps ...

cheers, MuS

[a212830]

The cname alias is created, but splunk does not recognize it in the deployment server. It takes the server name.

[MuS]

Ah now I understand your request....

I have no DNS available to modify host entries and test it, but my assumption is that Splunk uses A records or NAME records. If I recall it correct you could only overcome such a situation by using the messy solution on the deployment server........

[a212830]

Here was my work-around.. looking for a sanity review.

The install is done via a chef recipe, which also puts the deployment file structure down, and the regional outputs structure down. If an alias is requested as part of the serverclass install (to allow me to more easily segregate the hosts), then the chef recipe will create another directory structure, which will contain another deployment.conf, but only with this info:

[deployment-client]

Set the phoneHome at the end of the PS engagement

10 minutes

phoneHomeIntervalInSecs = 600

clientName = myalias

I did this manually and it seemed to work. Thoughts?