Splunk Search

Splunk data format

wildbill4
Path Finder

What is the Splunk data format of data being forwarded? Splunk website states TCP is format for transmission but its really a protocol for transmission?

Tags (2)
1 Solution

dwaddle
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

The "over the wire" format for Splunk's communications between forwarders and indexers does use TCP as its transport. The "Splunk protocol" inside TCP is Splunk proprietary and (to my knowledge) not documented.

If you are planning to build a receiver for Splunk forwarder data, be aware that Splunk can forward over a plain TCP socket to a 3rd party system. See http://www.splunk.com/base/Documentation/latest/Admin/Forwarddatatothird-partysystems

View solution in original post

dwaddle
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

The "over the wire" format for Splunk's communications between forwarders and indexers does use TCP as its transport. The "Splunk protocol" inside TCP is Splunk proprietary and (to my knowledge) not documented.

If you are planning to build a receiver for Splunk forwarder data, be aware that Splunk can forward over a plain TCP socket to a 3rd party system. See http://www.splunk.com/base/Documentation/latest/Admin/Forwarddatatothird-partysystems

Got questions? Get answers!

Join the Splunk Community Slack to learn, troubleshoot, and make connections with fellow Splunk practitioners in real time!

Meet up IRL or virtually!

Join Splunk User Groups to connect and learn in-person by region or remotely by topic or industry.

Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

Persistent Queue at TcpOut — One of Splunk's Most Practical Features

Splunk introduced persistent queueing at the tcpout layer as one of the most practical resilience features in ...

Build resilience for the agentic era: Join us at Splunk Go San Jose

AI is changing how organizations build, operate, and secure digital services. As teams adopt AI agents and ...

Manage Edge Processor pipelines end to end with APIs

This guide uses the Data Management APIs to create an Edge Processor, onboard one instance, deploy a pipeline ...