user-seed.conf not working

[mikelanghorst]

I'm attempting to use the user-seed.conf to set the admin password for my Windows Universal Forwarder installations, but not having any luck with it.

My installation command:
msiexec /i splunkforwarder-4.3.1-119532-x86-release.msi SPLUNKD_PORT=9998 DEPLOYMENT_SERVER=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8089 LAUNCHSPLUNK=1 /quiet

I then replaced the $splunk_home\etc\system\default\user-seed.conf and started splunk using the Service Menu. I'm then only able to login using admin:changeme

[amrit · Accepted solution]

I think this has to be done before the very first start. Maybe you want install the MSI with /LAUNCHSPLUNK=0 and create user-seed.conf, then start the Splunk service?

[mikelanghorst]

I had LAUNCHSPLUNK=0 originally, expecting that it wouldn't start the first time. So it appears that the UF runs the first time no matter what. I had seen something in the docs that suggested so, but wanted to get confirmation before I add the additional commands to change the password. Maybe user-seed.conf only works for *nix installations?

[mikelanghorst]

From the initial installation it looks to have read this file:
04-24-2012 16:20:52.722 -0700 WARN AuthenticationManagerSplunk - Failed to remove file 'C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\etc\system\default\user-seed.conf' errno=Access is denied.

There are no log messages for user-seed.conf on the subsequent start.
Does this file have to be placed before the installation occurs? I would expect that the installation would overwrite the file.