Getting Data In

outputs.conf defaultGroup wildcard not working

mw
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Based on the docs ( http://www.splunk.com/base/Documentation/4.2.1/Deploy/Configureforwarderswithoutputs.confd#Define_ty... ), I've created this outputs.conf:

me@server:/opt/splunkforwarder> cat etc/apps/dc_global_uf/default/outputs.conf
[tcpout]
defaultGroup = *
indexAndForward = false

[tcpout:group1]
compressed = false
server = work:9997
useACK = true

However, that seems to not work and gives this error:

05-06-2011 23:06:11.174 -0400 ERROR TcpOutputProc - the 'defaultGroup' property contains an invalid group name - * - skipping

Did I read/do something incorrectly, or should the wildcard work?

Tags (1)
0 Karma
1 Solution

gkanapathy
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

defaultGroup can not be a wildcard. It must refer to a specfic group or list of groups, in your example,

defaultGroup = group1

From http://www.splunk.com/base/Documentation/latest/Admin/Outputsconf :

defaultGroup = <target_group>, <target_group>, ...
* Comma-separated list of one or more target group names, specified later in [tcpout:<target_group>] stanzas.
* The forwarder sends all data to the specified groups.
* Can be set to a name that matches no groups to disable automatic forwarding. For example, "defaultGroup=do_not_forward".
* Can be overridden by an inputs.conf _TCP_ROUTING setting, which in turn can be overridden by a 
  props.conf/transforms.conf modifier.
* This attribute is required. The behavior of forwarding without this value is inconsistent across some versions.

View solution in original post

gkanapathy
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

defaultGroup can not be a wildcard. It must refer to a specfic group or list of groups, in your example,

defaultGroup = group1

From http://www.splunk.com/base/Documentation/latest/Admin/Outputsconf :

defaultGroup = <target_group>, <target_group>, ...
* Comma-separated list of one or more target group names, specified later in [tcpout:<target_group>] stanzas.
* The forwarder sends all data to the specified groups.
* Can be set to a name that matches no groups to disable automatic forwarding. For example, "defaultGroup=do_not_forward".
* Can be overridden by an inputs.conf _TCP_ROUTING setting, which in turn can be overridden by a 
  props.conf/transforms.conf modifier.
* This attribute is required. The behavior of forwarding without this value is inconsistent across some versions.

mw
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Awesome, thanks!

0 Karma

gkanapathy
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

The other docs you reference were wrong, and have been corrected

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!

Data Management Digest – August 2026

MichelleCorpora_1-1788182384472.png Welcome to the August 2026 edition of Data Management Digest! August was a ...

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 ...