Getting Data In

Input stanza path is not absolute.

archspangler
Path Finder

How do I wildcard any windows drive letter in the inputs.conf stanza below?

inputs.conf

[monitor://[A-Z]:\Data\Disk1\*\MSSQL\Log\ERRORLOG*]
sourcetype = mssql:errorlog

Causes the below error...

07-16-2015 10:53:57.601 -0400 WARN  TailingProcessor - Input stanza path, '[A-Z]:\\Data\\Disk1\\*\\MSSQL\\Log\\ERRORLOG*' is not absolute.  This is a configuration error and may not work / break things.  Change this path to an absolute path.
Tags (2)
0 Karma

emiller42
Motivator

So this gets into how Splunk actually identifies what it needs to monitor. Take a more traditional monitor stanza like:

[monitor://C:\Data\Disk1\*\MSSQL\Log\ERRORLOG*]

When splunk sees the above, it goes to the deepest full path given C:\Data\Disk1\ and turns the rest of the stanza name into a regex-based whitelist which is checked against all children of the given path.

When your monitor stanza starts with a wildcard, it has no base path to enumerate in the first place. (Windows doesn't have an equivalent to /) Even if it did, this is a bad idea as Splunk will need to enumerate every single file on a system to see if it is a regex match of the desired path.

martin_mueller
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

To add an actual solution, just put up to 26 stanzas in your inputs.conf.

emiller42
Motivator

Yes, apologies I thought this was implied in my answer.

martin_mueller
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

It was, no worries.

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!

Unlocking Unified Insights: New Gigamon Federated Search App for Splunk

In today’s data-heavy environment, organizations are caught in a data distribution dilemma. As data volumes ...

GA: New Data Management App in Splunk Platform

Streamlining Data Management: Introducing a unified experience in Splunk Managing data at scale shouldn’t feel ...

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 ...