Pass the Splunk Core Certified Consultant SPLK-3003 Questions and answers with ValidTests

 Line breaking is the process of splitting the incoming stream of data into separate lines based on a regular expression. Line breaking occurs in the parsing pipeline, which is one of the pipelines that data goes through as it enters the indexer. The parsing pipeline is responsible for extracting metadata, such as source, sourcetype, host, timestamp, and index, as well as breaking events into lines and merging lines into events. Therefore, the correct answer is D, parsing. References :=

How indexing works

Configure event line breaking

The correct statement is that in general, search commands that can be distributed to the search peers should occur as early as possible in a well-tuned search. This is because distributed commands can leverage the parallel processing power of the search peers, which reduces the load on the search head and improves the search performance. Distributed commands are also known as streaming commands, which operate on each event individually and can be run on remote indexes. Some examples of distributed commands are eval, fields, rename, and where. References:

[Splunk Certification Exam Study Guide], page 25

[Splunk Documentation: About optimizing search performance]

[Splunk Documentation: About streaming and transforming commands]

 This is the minimum and least disruptive change necessary to protect the searchability of the indexer cluster in case of indexer failure, because it ensures that there are always at least two copies of each bucket in the cluster, one of which is searchable. This way, if one indexer fails, the cluster can still serve search requests from the remaining copy. Increasing the replication factor and search factor also improves the cluster’s resiliency and availability.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not protect the searchability of the cluster, or they require more changes and disruptions to the cluster. Option A is incorrect because enabling maintenance mode on the CM does not prevent excessive fix-up, but rather delays it until maintenance mode is disabled. Maintenance mode also prevents searches from running on the cluster, which defeats the purpose of protecting searchability. Option B is incorrect because leaving replication_factor=2 means that there is only one searchable copy of each bucket in the cluster, which is not enough to protect searchability in case of indexer failure. Enabling summary_replication does not help with this issue, as it only applies to summary indexes, not all indexes. Option C is incorrect because converting the cluster to multi-site requires a lot of changes and disruptions to the cluster, such as reassigning site attributes to all nodes, reconfiguring network settings, and rebalancing buckets across sites. It also does not guarantee that there will always be a searchable copy of each bucket in each site, unless the site replication factor and site search factor are set accordingly. References:

Splunk Core Consultant knowledge source documents or study guide: https://www.splunk.com/en_us/resources/splunk-certification-exam-study-guide.html

Splunk Test Blueprint Consultant: https://www.splunk.com/en_us/pdfs/training/splunk-test-blueprint-consultant.pdf

 This configuration item determines whether Splunk software merges multiple lines into single events. By default, it is set to true, which means that Splunk software attempts to merge lines that do not start with a timestamp into the previous line that has a timestamp. This can improve the accuracy of event breaking, but it can also degrade the performance of data ingestion, as it requires more processing and memory resources. Setting SHOULD_LINEMERGE to false can significantly improve data ingestion performance, especially for data sources that have consistent event boundaries and do not need line merging. However, this can also result in incorrect event breaking for some data sources that have multi-line events or variable formats.

The other options are incorrect because they do not have a significant impact on data ingestion performance. Option A is incorrect because AUTO_KV_JSON is a configuration item that enables automatic key-value extraction for JSON data. It does not affect data ingestion performance, as it only applies to search-time processing. Option B is incorrect because BREAK_ONLY_BEFORE_DATE is a configuration item that controls how Splunk software breaks events based on timestamps. It does not affect data ingestion performance, as it only applies to search-time processing. Option D is incorrect because ANNOTATE_PUNCT is a configuration item that adds punctuation metadata to events for faster field extraction. It does not affect data ingestion performance, as it only applies to search-time processing. References:

Splunk Core Consultant knowledge source documents or study guide: https://www.splunk.com/en_us/resources/splunk-certification-exam-study-guide.html

Splunk Test Blueprint Consultant: https://www.splunk.com/en_us/pdfs/training/splunk-test-blueprint-consultant.pdf

Configure event line merging1

How Splunk software breaks event data into events

The best practice for ingesting data from a network device that transmits logs directly with UDP or TCP over SSL is to use a syslog server to aggregate the data to files and use a heavy forwarder to read and transmit the data to the indexing tier. This method has several advantages, such as:

It reduces the load on the network device by sending the data to a dedicated syslog server.

It provides a reliable and secure transport of data by using TCP over SSL between the syslog server and the heavy forwarder.

It allows the heavy forwarder to parse and enrich the data before sending it to the indexing tier.

It preserves the original timestamp and host information of the data by using the syslog-ng or Splunk Connect for Syslog solutions.

Therefore, the correct answer is C, use a syslog server to aggregate the data to files and use a heavy forwarder to read and transmit the data to the indexing tier. References :=

Get data from network sources

Use Splunk Connect for Syslog

Configure event processing

The parsing pipeline contains the regex replacement processor that would be called upon to run event masking routines on events as they are ingested. Event masking is a process of replacing sensitive data in events with a placeholder value, such as “XXXXX”. This is done by using the SEDCMD attribute in props.conf, which specifies a regular expression to apply to the raw data of an event. The regex replacement processor is responsible for executing the SEDCMD attribute on the events before they are indexed. References:

[Splunk Certification Exam Study Guide], page 17

[Splunk Documentation: Configure event processing]

[Splunk Documentation: Anonymize data]

To set up the HTTP Event Collector (HEC), each HEC input entry must contain a valid token. A token is a string of alphanumeric characters that acts as an identifier and an authentication code for the HEC input. You can generate a token when you create a new HEC input or use an existing token for multiple inputs. A token is required for sending data to HEC and for managing the HEC input settings. References :=

Set up and use HTTP Event Collector in Splunk Web

Configure the Splunk HTTP Event Collector for use with additional data sources

The default push mode for a search head cluster deployer app configuration bundle is full. This means that the deployer pushes the entire app configuration bundle to the search head cluster members, overwriting any existing app configurations on the members. The full push mode ensures that the app configurations are consistent and synchronized across the cluster. The other push modes are merge_to_default, default_only, and local_only, which have different effects on how the app configurations are merged or overwritten on the cluster members. Therefore, the correct answer is A. full. References:

Splunk Core Certified Consultant Test Blueprint

Splunk Documentation: Deploy apps to a search head cluster

Splunk Documentation: Push configuration bundle

The search can be rewritten to maximize efficiency by using the index option. The index option is used to specify the index to search. This option is useful when you have multiple indexes and want to search only one of them. The index option is also useful when you want to search a specific index that is not the default index. The index option can reduce the search time and resource consumption by limiting the scope of the search. Therefore, the correct answer is C. Option C, which uses the index option to search only the main index for the sourcetype web_access. References:

Splunk Core Certified Consultant Test Blueprint

Splunk Documentation: Specify indexes in your search

Splunk Documentation: Use the index option

 The inputs.conf stanzas in the image are attempting to monitor the files secure and messages in the /var/log directory. However, the whitelist attribute is set to “messages” and “secure” respectively, which means that only those files will be actively monitored. Therefore, the correct answer is D. /var/log/secure, /var/log/messages. References:

Splunk Core Certified Consultant Test Blueprint

Splunk Documentation: Monitor files and directories with inputs.conf

Splunk Documentation: Use whitelist and blacklist to filter inputs