Why does Splunk forwarder not report on any default monitored directories?

[bbiandov]

I noticed that a new install of splunkforwarder automatically monitors the following directories:

Monitored Directories:
            $SPLUNK_HOME/var/log/splunk/splunkd.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/audit.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/btool.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/first_install.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/license_audit.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/license_usage.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/metrics.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/remote_searches.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/scheduler.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/searchhistory.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/splunkd-utility.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/splunkd.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/splunkd_access.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/splunkd_stderr.log
                    /opt/splunkforwarder/var/log/splunk/splunkd_stdout.log
            $SPLUNK_HOME/var/spool/splunk/...stash_new
    Monitored Files:
            $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/splunk.version

However it does NOT report on any of them; meaning, unless one manually addresses yet another directory, only the host shows up as reporting anything.

If one doesn't add any directories to be monitored at all then the newly installed forwarder does NOT report anything at all.
Is that normal behavior? Why wouldn't it report on the directories added by default shown above?

[yannK]

internal events are in the _internal index that is no searched by default.

As admin, try index=_internal

[jrodman]

What do you mean by report?

What are you doing in splunk? What happens? What are you expecting to happen that is different?