Getting Data In

Do forwarders require indexes.conf?

jaoui
Path Finder

If i am setting up a heavy forwarder to monitor directories and tag indexes, do i need to create an indexes.conf on it or is specifying an index in inputs.conf sufficient?

Tags (1)
0 Karma

yannK
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

It shouldn't be necessary.
you can have an heavy forwarder specifying index destinations based on props/transforms or in the inputs, but those indexes only exists on the indexers.

However, if you are using the CLI to specify a new input with a specific index, you may see an error about index missing. This is a bug and will be fixed, this is why it's better to use the configurations files.

Got questions? Get answers!

Join the Splunk Community Slack to learn, troubleshoot, and make connections with fellow Splunk practitioners in real time!

Meet up IRL or virtually!

Join Splunk User Groups to connect and learn in-person by region or remotely by topic or industry.

Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

Your Feedback. Our Roadmap. Visit the PX Feedback Booth at .conf26

You use Splunk every day, come and help shape what's next.  Save Your Seat: Product-Focused Sessions at ...

Agentic SOC Triage: Investigating Splunk ES Notables with MCP Server and a Local LLM

The Problem: Too Many Alerts, Too Little Context Security operations teams running Splunk Enterprise Security ...

Painting a Clearer Picture: Creating Cross-Domain Visibility with AI Canvas

Watch Now Painting a Clearer Picture: Creating Cross-Domain Visibility with AI Canvas     Do you ever feel ...