Getting Data In

Change host at index time

robwheeler
Engager

I have a mixture of Wintel and *nix hosts that send logs via the UF, the UF is deployed globally by third parties so access once deployed is limited and standards vary globally in terms of hostname. All hosts start is a letter thats about it.

The question I have is that reporting is being a challenge and I want all hosts to be consistent in terms of name convention, i.e. without any fqdn name.

For Wintel and 70% of *nix this is not a problem and host appears as the shortname. However for the other 30% the fqdn name is an issue.

I've looked but can't find the answer or a solution that works.

My theory is props/transforms config on the HF's that target the sourcetype of the hosts with the fqdn.

Can someone help me out please?

As this is global and not standardized there are multiple variations on fdqn.

Goal -

Index host as shortname

Variations on fqdn could be anything along the lines -

host.xxx.com
host.xxx.xx.xxx.corp
host.xxx.xxx.com
host.xxx.xxx.ie

I tried to work out a searchtime transform but couldn't get it to capture both shortname and fqdn names into one field. This would also be a valid option over the index time.

Regards

Rob

0 Karma

somesoni2
Revered Legend

I would try something like this. It assumes that there are at least 2 dots in the. Restart Splunk after change. This would only be executed for all data coming from hosts that are following the pattern specified in props.conf.

props.conf on HF (one stanza for each last segment of fqdn

[host::*.*.com]
TRANSFORMS-fixhost = fqdn_to_short
[host::*.*.org]
TRANSFORMS-fixhost = fqdn_to_short
[host::*.*.corp]
TRANSFORMS-fixhost = fqdn_to_short
..other fqdns...

transforms.conf on HF

[fqdn_to_short]
SOURCE_KEY = MetaData:Host
REGEX = ^([A-z][^\.]+)
FORMAT = $1
DEST_KEY = MetaData:Host
0 Karma

DalJeanis
Legend

The trivial method is going to look something like this...

props.conf1

[sourcetypewhatever]
TRANSFORMS-FIELDS = redirect-host

transforms.conf2

[redirect-host]
REGEX = ([^.]+)\..*
DEST_KEY = MetaData:Host
FORMAT = $1

That will pull everything before the first period. However, that will kill you in the occasional case where the host gets extracted as the ip address, so a more complicated regex may be needed.

0 Karma
Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

Splunk Observability Cloud’s AI Assistant in Action Series: Analyzing and ...

This is the second post in our Splunk Observability Cloud’s AI Assistant in Action series, in which we look at ...

Elevate Your Organization with Splunk’s Next Platform Evolution

 Thursday, July 10, 2025  |  11AM PDT / 2PM EDT Whether you're managing complex deployments or looking to ...

Splunk Answers Content Calendar, June Edition

Get ready for this week’s post dedicated to Splunk Dashboards! We're celebrating the power of community by ...