Getting Data In

How to purge old syslog events in Splunk?

benbeard
New Member

I can't for the life of me figure out how to purge old syslog entries in Splunk.

Tech details:
My 1st time using Splunk
Using Splunk on Windows Server 2012
Listening over UDP on 514 from Meraki devices.

Is there a way I can set a max number of entries and anything over the max falls off, or at least only keep the last 7-14 days of entries?

I'm currently at about 13,000,000 entries.

0 Karma

micahkemp
Champion

Event expiration happens at the index level. You can't (using normal Splunk practices) expire from a single sourcetype/host/etc.

Take a look at indexes.conf doc:
http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/6.4.2/Admin/Indexesconf

maxTotalDataSizeMB =
* The maximum size of an index (in MB).
* If an index grows larger than the maximum size, the oldest data is frozen.
* This parameter only applies to hot, warm, and cold buckets. It does not
apply to thawed buckets.
* Highest legal value is 4294967295
* Defaults to 500000.

frozenTimePeriodInSecs =
* Number of seconds after which indexed data rolls to frozen.
* If you do not specify a coldToFrozenScript, data is deleted when rolled to
frozen.
* IMPORTANT: Every event in the DB must be older than frozenTimePeriodInSecs
before it will roll. Then, the DB will be frozen the next time splunkd
checks (based on rotatePeriodInSecs attribute).
* Highest legal value is 4294967295
* Defaults to 188697600 (6 years).

0 Karma
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!

Announcing Modern Navigation: A New Era of Splunk User Experience

We are excited to introduce the Modern Navigation feature in the Splunk Platform, available to both cloud and ...

Think Like an Architect: Introducing the Splunk Certified Cybersecurity Defense ...

In cybersecurity, defenders respond to threats. Architects design the systems that stop them.    As ...

Best Practices: Splunk auto adjust pipeline queue

When you enable autoAdjustQueue in Splunk, maxSize should be understood as the queue size Splunk starts with ...