Why does enabling Duo in Splunk break local admin login and is there a way around that?

[wrangler2x]

I'm on the 6.5.2 release and I have Duo turned on in the Splunk configs. It has been working great, but I just found out that I cannot login as user admin in Splunk Web. I get this message:

Access Denied. The username you have entered cannot authenticate with Duo Security. Please contact your system administrator.

That's rather inconvenient! Surely there is a way around this?

[mstjohn_splunk]

hi @wrangler2x,

are you using the Duo Splunk Connector or the Duo Log Add-on?

[wrangler2x]

No, this has nothing to do with add-on software. I've configured Splunk to require Duo MFA at logon time. See this here:

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/7.1.2/Security/ConfigureDuo

[javier_oshiro]

We are currently trying to get around this issue.
Have you managed to exclude the local admin account from the DUO mfa?