Getting Data In

Splunk not ingesting some log files

user789
New Member

I have set splunk to ingest the /var/log directory. On this particular host, I go to filter by "source", and only see 2 sources:

  • /var/log/messages
  • /var/log/maillog

Why is it not seeing other files and folders? For example, there is /var/log/audit/audit.log.

0 Karma

richgalloway
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

Does the account running Splunk have read access to the missing files? Often, files in /var/log are secured so only root can read them.

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If this reply helps you, Karma would be appreciated.
0 Karma

user789
New Member

Splunk is running as "sudo", so this should be fine, right?

0 Karma

richgalloway
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

"fine" as in able to read the files, yes. "fine" as in a good way to run Splunk, no. Running Splunk (or any non-OS process) as root increases your attack surface.

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If this reply helps you, Karma would be appreciated.

user789
New Member

So splunk is able to read these files and into directories, yet they are not populating on the splunk server.

0 Karma

richgalloway
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

Search index=_internal to verify the forwarder is sending data to the indexers. Verify you are looking in the right index for the data.

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If this reply helps you, Karma would be appreciated.
0 Karma

user789
New Member

I ran the query for index=_internal, and I do not see any of my hosts showing up.

0 Karma
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