Has anyone gotten the PDF Report Server app to work in Splunk 6.2?

[Lucas_K]

Yes I know this app is officially deprecated in all v6 versions BUT has anyone gotten it working in v6.2 at all?

We'd previously had an instance on 6.1.3 and it was fine. I've tried the normal culprits like firefox timeouts, the newer splunkdConnectionTimeout in web.conf, and modified init.py (previous suggestions here -> http://answers.splunk.com/answers/39685/pdfserver-the-read-operation-timed-out-on-dashboard-renderin...) No change.

We have a large number of advanced xml reports that only work via the pdf server and not the built in pdf support (simple xml only).

2014-11-09 07:20:02,474 +1100 INFO      sendemail:1156 - sendemail opening PDF request to appserver at https://xxxxxxxxxxx:8001/en-US/report/
2014-11-09 07:20:02,911 +1100 INFO      pdfhandler:646 - Starting PDF App Renderer Version 1.3
2014-11-09 07:20:02,911 INFO Starting PDF App Renderer Version 1.3
2014-11-09 07:20:02,926 +1100 INFO      xvfb:45 - Started new X server. Now 1 active
2014-11-09 07:20:02,926 INFO Started new X server. Now 1 active
print https://xxxxxxxxxx:8001/app/xxxxxxxxx/Report -printmode 
2014-11-09 07:20:02,935 +1100 INFO      xvfb:205 - Assigned DISPLAY :5
2014-11-09 07:20:02,935 INFO Assigned DISPLAY :5
2014-11-09 07:20:02,936 +1100 INFO      xvfb:115 - Starting X Server: ['/usr/bin/Xvfb', ':5', '-screen', '0', '3000x768x24', '-nolisten', 'tcp']
2014-11-09 07:20:02,936 INFO Starting X Server: ['/usr/bin/Xvfb', ':5', '-screen', '0', '3000x768x24', '-nolisten', 'tcp']
2014-11-09 07:20:02,936 +1100 INFO      xvfb:116 - Starting X Server env: {'XAUTHORITY': '/opt/utility/splunk/var/run/splunk/xvfb/xauth-5/Xauthority'}
2014-11-09 07:20:02,936 INFO Starting X Server env: {'XAUTHORITY': '/opt/utility/splunk/var/run/splunk/xvfb/xauth-5/Xauthority'}
2014-11-09 07:20:04,941 +1100 INFO      xvfb:122 - X Started
2014-11-09 07:20:04,941 INFO X Started
2014-11-09 07:28:22,482 +1100 ERROR     sendemail:959 - An error occurred while generating a PDF: Failed to contact appserver at https://xxxxxxxxxxxxxx:8001/en-US/report/: HTTP Error 502: Read Timeout
2014-11-09 07:28:22,776 +1100 INFO      sendemail:109 - Sending email. subject="Splunk Alert: Report", results_link="https://xxxxxxxxxx:8001/app/xxxxxxxxxx/@go?sid=", recipients="[u'xxxxxxxxx']", server="localhost"
2014-11-09 07:30:02,858 +1100 INFO      sendemail:948 - sendemail pdfService = deprecated
2014-11-09 07:30:02,859 +1100 INFO      sendemail:1156 - sendemail opening PDF request to appserver at https://xxxxxxxxxxxxxx:8001/en-US/report/
2014-11-09 07:30:03,752 +1100 INFO      pdfhandler:646 - Starting PDF App Renderer Version 1.3
2014-11-09 07:30:03,752 INFO Starting PDF App Renderer Version 1.3

[yannK]

Hi Lucas

The external pdf server app is removed for splunk 6.2
see http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/6.2.0/ReleaseNotes/Deprecatedfeatures#Features_removed
so you want to rewrite your dashboard in SimpleXML to be compatible with the integrated pdf server.

However, to ease the transition there is a way to run the splunkweb in legacy mode compatible with the old pdf server app. But his is not a supported solution, and this is not intended to be a long term solution.
http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/6.2.0/Admin/StartSplunk#Start_Splunk_Enterprise_on_Unix_...