Deployment Server not allowed under 4.2 forwarder license?

[Jason]

I just recently switched a functioning 4.2 Deployment Server/Search Head from Enterprise Trial to the Forwarder license. (Forwarder license is what you ran this type of box on on 4.1.x, provided it did not index anything locally). Now Deployment Server has stopped working:

$ ./splunk list deploy-clients
Current license does not allow the requested action
$ ./splunk reload deploy-server
Current license does not allow the requested action

On the logs of a client:

WARN DeploymentClient - Unable to send phonehome message to deployment server. Error status is: rejected

Is this intended, or a bug? This is definitely a change from 4.1.x.

[gkanapathy · Accepted solution]

That is correct, and new. The new forwarder license is not an full enterprise license and does not supply Deployment Server. The old one was simply a tiny forwarder license. I recommend for Deployment Server that you simply make the Deployment Server instance a license slave to an enterprise license indexer. It won't consume any license, but will still get the enterprise features.

[Jason]

And would not bust its license if you accidentally enabled something like the Unix app inputs without specifying an indexer to forward to. Just wanted to make sure it was indended - thanks.

[mamaral]

Jason, Deployment Server, Distributed Search are entreprise rules... For these you'll need a license.

---

Amaral

[Jason]

In 4.1.x and earlier, using the forwarder license was the method for applying the enterprise features to a box that did no indexing, such as search heads and deployment servers.