Installation

User permissions for splunk multi-instance installation

dataIngester
Explorer

I know it is possible to have multiple instances of splunk running on the same machine/server.

My question is if there would be a conflict with the $SPLUNK_HOME variable being assigned to the same user "splunk". How can such a configuration be made possible on linux?

I have a Search Head instance installed at /data/splunk/ and the home directory ($SPLUNK_HOME) for the "splunk" user is /data/splunk/bin/.

I need to install a Forwarder on the same machine at /data2/splunkforwarder/ and the user will still be "splunk". 

Will there be no conflict with 2 different home directories being assigned to the same user? Is such an implementation possible?

Labels (2)
0 Karma

manjunathmeti
Champion

For Splunk documentation: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.1.1/Admin/Splunk-launchconf

SPLUNK_HOME = <string>
* The fully qualified path to the Splunk platform instance installation directory.
* The comment in the auto-generated splunk-launch.conf is informational, not
a live setting, and does not need to be uncommented.
* If not set, the Splunk platform automatically determines the location of SPLUNK_HOME
based on the location of the splunk CLI executable.
* Specifically, the parent of the directory containing splunk or splunk.exe

Accroding to this your forwarder home path will be /data2/splunkforwarder/ if splunk executable exist in /data2/splunkforwarder/bin/

So, there will no conflicts of running two instances under the same user.

 

If this reply helps you, an upvote/like would be appreciated.

0 Karma
Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

Index This | What is broken 80% of the time by February?

December 2025 Edition   Hayyy Splunk Education Enthusiasts and the Eternally Curious!    We’re back with this ...

Unlock Faster Time-to-Value on Edge and Ingest Processor with New SPL2 Pipeline ...

Hello Splunk Community,   We're thrilled to share an exciting update that will help you manage your data more ...

Splunk MCP & Agentic AI: Machine Data Without Limits

Discover how the Splunk Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server can revolutionize the way your organization uses ...