I'd like to open up some of Splunk-web for any user to access, e.g. so that they can see overall load/usage of a cluster of machines before trying to login to one.
One approach is to just create a new user with limited functionality -- guest -- and assign it a simple password that I hand out to everyone. This works, and I can assign it to default to a known app/dashboard, but seems kind of silly.
Is there a way to just open up Splunk-web, or specifically an app or dashboard, so that anyone can access it without typing in a username/password?
As far as I know, the latter choice of opening up Splunk web without having some form of authentication is not an option. You will need to go with the approach you mentioned first, creating the guest account. I would suggest you create a specific role that contains very limited capabilities associated with the role you've created for this guest user. I wouldn't be comfortable without allowing some level of authentication to track which users are performing particular actions.
You can set enable_insecure_login=true
in /etc/system/local/web.conf (create this file if it doesn't exist). You can then allow users to skip the login screen by placing the credentials into the url, e.g. http://localhost:8000/en-US/account/insecurelogin?username=guest&password=guest
Just implemented this in my test setup, it does enable access to Splunk without the usual login prompt.
However: If you are using this option, make sure that you also only use https to access splunk. In case of http, the url parameters (username and password) are transmitted in clear text.
As far as I know, the latter choice of opening up Splunk web without having some form of authentication is not an option. You will need to go with the approach you mentioned first, creating the guest account. I would suggest you create a specific role that contains very limited capabilities associated with the role you've created for this guest user. I wouldn't be comfortable without allowing some level of authentication to track which users are performing particular actions.
If you're interested in a Kiosk type of dashboard check out...
http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Developer/3rdParty