How do i migrate from Splunklight free to Splunk Enterprise Free?

[Joe]

I have a splunklight free instance at home. I'm using it for development and for monitoring syslogs from some local vms.

Since splunklight isn't a thing anymore, I want to migrate it to splunk enterprise. I've already installed the latest version (downladed from the website), but it doesn't seem to want to allow me to migrate it to a splunk enterprise free license.

It asks to upload a license file, which I can't download from the website anywhere...

Now my splunk light instance is saying I have an invalid license. I've tried everything, there seems to be no path without actually purchasing a license file (which I don't need for my home environment, it's way overkill).

Anyone else in the same boat? or have successfully fixed this problem?

I've emailed splunk support and they've ignored me. They clearly don't care about people who don't pay for licenses.

[richgalloway]

To clarify, you have both Splunk Light and Splunk Enterprise installed, correct?  If you go to Settings->Licensing what kind of license does it say you have?  It should be a trial license which will convert to a free license automatically once the trial period ends.

Splunk Support is for users who pay for support, which doesn't include users with free licenses.

[Joe]

Yes, I installed the splunk enterprise RPM over the splunklight one. When I re-started splunk it asked me to accept a new EULA, which I did.

When I log in as admin, I can't access anything. There's a splash screen that is requesting me to change the license. When I click "Free" It says: "Could not apply Free license."

The UI still looks like SplunkLight however. Not Splunk Enterprise.

Joe

[Joe]

If I click "Get License" It's only paid options. If I click "Add License" it wants a .lic file, which I can't get online.

[Joe]

@richgalloway I'm running this in a VM so I reverted to snapshot. I was able to get info related to the license. It's a lite_free and it's valid.

[isoutamo]

Does this help https://www.splunk.com/page/previous_releases? There seems to be a trial license file.

R. Ismo

[Joe]

@isoutamo  Thanks for the suggestion.

Just tried it. "Validation failed. Please double check your license file. "

[Joe]

Looks like there is a .lic file in $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/licenses

I downloaded a new Enterprise Trial from the website and installed it on a different host. Grabbed that enttrial.lic file that was generated and copied it to my splunklight host and it also failed verification (almost as if it's tied to the host somehow).

I feel like there's no solution to this unless I just re-install from scratch.

[Joe]

In  a testing VM, I forced the license to be "free" rather than the trial to see if it would spit out a new license file and nothing happened.  This is what the license looks like on the latest enterprise version I just installed.

There doesn't seem to be a way to move this over to my splunklight instance.

[Joe · Accepted solution]

I was able to fix the problem. Here is a the way I was able to get an older version free splunklight instance upgraded to the splunk enterprise free version.

I highly recommend taking a snapshot or full backup before proceeding. If this procedure doesn't work for you, your splunk instance will be locked out with an invalid license.

On a running splunklight free instance, download the latest splunk enterprise package and install it manually using your package manager. In my case, I'm using CentOS so I'll be using yum in the example.

cd /tmp
wget <latest splunk enterprise trial download link from website>
yum install <splunk file downloaded above>
/opt/splunk/bin/splunk start
# scroll down and accept the EULA. If you browse your splunk site now it will say license expired.
# stop splunk and clear all license files from disk, forcing it to grab a new one.
/opt/splunk/bin/splunk stop
rm /opt/splunk/etc/splunk-enttrial.lic
rm -rf /opt/splunk/etc/licenses/*
/opt/splunk/bin/splunk start
# You should now have a working Splunk Enterprise Free instance running with all of your existing data. You'll know it worked if you see the Enterprise theme once you start it up again rather than the lite theme.