Top Splunk Interview Questions & Answers (2024)

Introduction

In this fast-growing techie world, every passing day, either we develop new technologies or discover a new element or a compound! These all lead to increasing syllabus for the more recent generations, eventually making the interview harder. To tackle all these challenges, the summer of 2016 came with the messiah as ‘Coding ninjas’ for the student community.

Today this messiah will be discussing the essential Splunk interview questions, as learning Splunk interview questions are vital for giving interviews. In this blog, we will discuss some basic levels of Splunk interview questions, intermediate Splunk interview questions, and advanced Splunk interview questions. These Splunk interview questions will also contain answers and a brief explanation. After reading this blog related to Splunk interview questions, I hope you can quickly answer all of the questions in your following interview.

Top 30+ Splunk Interview Questions (2023)

So, let us start the blog with Splunk interview questions.

Must Read, jenkins interview questions

What is Splunk?

Splunk is a horizontal technology used for application management, web and business analytics with the help of big data. Splunk uses machine data to identify patterns, provide metrics, diagnose problems, and provide intelligence for business operations.

Splunk Interview Questions for Freshers

1. Mention some of the uses of Splunk?

Splunk uses big data for monitoring and searching through indexing. Apart from this, We can use one laptop or a vast, distributed architecture in a business data centre to deploy Splunk. It offers a machine data fabric that enables real-time collecting and indexing of machine data from any network, data centre, or IT environment. This fabric includes forwarders, indexers, and search heads (see our article on Splunk architecture).

2. What is Splunk Architecture?

The architecture of Splunk consists of elements for data gathering, indexing, and searching. Data is gathered from numerous sources, indexes are created for effective querying, and a search head is used to analyse the data. Scalability and real-time data processing are improved by distributed components including indexers, search peers, and forwarders.

3. Difference between Splunk and Spark.

The differences between Splunk and Spark are as follows:

Use Case: While Spark is a general-purpose data processing framework for activities like batch processing, real-time data processing, machine learning, and graph processing, Splunk is generally used for log and event data analysis.
Data Type: While Spark is built to handle various data kinds, including structured, unstructured, batch, and real-time data, Splunk focuses on log and event data analysis.
Scalability: Splunk expands mainly through expanding the cluster's log-optimized indexers and search heads. Spark scales by incorporating more worker nodes, making it appropriate for more extensive data processing workloads.

4. What is the Splunk app?

A pre-packaged addition or extension known as a "Splunk app" offers particular capabilities or features within the Splunk platform. These applications cater to specific use cases, sectors, or data sources. Pre-configured dashboards, stored searches, field extractions, and knowledge objects designed for a particular use are all examples of Splunk apps.

5. Does Splunk offer any help to organisations?

Yes! It offers much help to various organisations examining their end-to-end infrastructure and other critical business matrices and transactions. This software uses big data for application management and business analytics; nowadays, data is getting tremendous! So, using Splunk for business analytics will surely be a blessing for organisations.

6. What do you mean by the Splunk administration?

Splunk administration means the engineers who can efficiently operate this software without difficulty managing the organisation's business and web analytics. These administrators must be certified and skilled enough to handle Splunk.

7. How do we configure Splunk?

The significant brains behind Splunk's operation are its configuration files, which regulate Splunk's overall behaviour. With the proper access, anyone may easily edit or view all the relevant files, which are saved with the .conf extension.

8. What is license verification in Splunk?

The simple concept of a licence violation is what happens when the data limit is exceeded. The free version features three warnings, whereas the commercial licencing has at least five.

In other words, it can be described as the following statement.

When the platform's data limit is exceeded, this circumstance occurs. Using software with a commercial licence causes the platform to issue five notifications. If we are using the software's free version, it only creates three alerts.

9. Name some of the components of the Splunk enterprise deployment?

The components of the Splunk enterprise deployment include Indexer, forwarders, search head, and deployment servers.

10. Name some of the common port numbers used by Splunk?

Splunk's standard port numbers are:

Port 8000 for Splunk
Port 8089 for Splunk Management
Network port for Splunk: 514
KV store: 8191
Splunk Index Replication Port: 8080
Splunk Indexing Port: 9997

11. What are the different kinds of Splunk forwarders?

Splunk Forwarders come in two varieties:

In order to collect data locally, a Splunk agent called Universal Forwarder (UF) is installed on non-Splunk systems. UF is unable to index or understand data.

A heavyweight Splunk agent with sophisticated features like parsing and indexing is called the Heavyweight Forwarder (HWF). It is employed to filter data.

12. How does the Splunk platform work?

The forwarder gathers data from multiple sources and sends it to the Indexer, one of the three components of this platform. The Indexer then keeps the data in its host storage or computer that functions as cloud storage for a while.

We can then utilise the search head for various tasks, including searching, analysing, and visualising the data that is kept in the Indexer.

The fourth element, the Deployment Server, is also engaged in the case of a larger platform. All these parts work together to support the platform for which they are used by acting as an antiviral server—these elements aid in transforming the gathered data into outcomes that assist in resolving the stated query.

13. What is the latest version of Splunk in use?

Splunk 9.1 is the latest version of Splunk in use.

14. What do you mean by Splunk Indexer?

The Splunk Enterprise component that builds and maintains indexes is known as the Indexer. An indexer's main responsibilities are:

indexing newly arrived data.

Using the indexed data to search.

Splunk Interview Questions for Experienced

15. Which Splunk configuration files are the most crucial?

The most crucial configuration files are:-

Props.conf
Indexes.conf
Inputs.conf
Transforms.conf
server.conf

16. Mention the main function of components of Splunk?

The forwarder's primary duty is to gather data from multiple sources and convey it to the indexers. Then, the Indexer will save the obtained data for later use on the host computer or in the cloud. Search Many tasks, like searching, indexing, and data visualisation, are often carried out by head components.

17. Support user authentication systems with Splunk administration?

A scripted authentication API for use with an external authentication system like PAM or RADIUS, Multifactor authentication, and Single Sign-on are just a few of the several authentication methods that the Splunk administration will support.

18. What different Splunk licences are there?

The different types of licences are as follows.

Free licencing for businesses
licence to forward
Beta approval
seek heads' licences (for distributed search)
Cluster members' licences (for index replication)

19. What are the types of Splunk Licences?

Splunk Enterprise licences mainly come in two different varieties:

Enterprise Licence: This licence is for businesses that need to use advanced Splunk Enterprise technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence or that need to index more than 500GB of data per day. Depending on how much data the organisation needs to index, different sizes of enterprise licences are available.
Free Licence: This licence is for companies who don't need to use Splunk Enterprise's sophisticated capabilities and just need to index less than 500GB of data per day. Small enterprises and organisations just starting with Splunk may consider the Free Licence.

20. Describe query in Splunk?

On data produced by machines, particular processes can be carried out using Splunk searches. SPL is used by Splunk queries to interact with databases and other data sources (Search Processing Language). There are numerous functions, parameters, commands, etc., in this language that We can use to extract specific data from automatically generated data. Users can now execute queries to study their data, thanks to this. It enables users to query, alter, and update data in databases, similarly to SQL.

In order to extract reference data from machine-generated data, it is generally used to analyse log files. Companies that need to handle and analyse a multitude of data sources simultaneously in order to deliver findings in real-time can particularly benefit from it.

21. What function does the License Master do in Splunk?

The licence master in Splunk is in charge of making sure that the constrained data is indexed. Maintaining the environment within the bounds of the volume paid is crucial because each Splunk licence is predicated on the volume of data entering the platform every 24 hours.

It is simply impossible to search the data whenever the licencing master is down. As a result, just searching is still disabled while data indexing is still being done. No changes will be made to data entering the Indexer. The Indexers will continue to index the data as usual, and your Splunk deployment will continue to receive data.

22. Describe the licence infraction. How will you respond to or address a warning for a licencing violation?

License warnings are issued when your daily indexing volume exceeds the license's limit, and licence violations happen after a string of warnings. A licence violation will occur if you receive repeated licence warnings and go over your license's maximum warning allotment. Before Indexer stops triggering search results and reports for customers with a Splunk commercial subscription, users can get five warnings within a 30-day window. However, only three cautions will be given to users of the free version.

23. The Splunk Database (DB) Connect

A general-purpose SQL (Structured Query Language) database extension/plugin for Splunk, called Splunk Database (DB) Connect, makes it simple to integrate database data with Splunk queries and reports. When unstructured machine data and structured data from databases are successfully merged via Splunk DB Connect, Splunk Enterprise can be used to draw conclusions from the combined data.

24. What variations exist in the Splunk product?

There are three versions of Splunk products, as follows:

Splunk Enterprise: Splunk Enterprise is used by several IT businesses. Data from many websites, applications, gadgets, sensors, etc., are analysed by this software. This tool allows you to search, analyse, and visualise data from your IT or business infrastructure.

Splunk Cloud: This software-as-a-service platform offers many of the same capabilities as enterprise versions, such as APIs, SDKs, and other tools. It is possible to track and organise user logins, forgotten passwords, unsuccessful login attempts, and server restarts.

You may view, search, and update your log data with Splunk Light, a free version of Splunk. This variant is less functional and equipped than other versions.

25. Write about the many options accessible when setting up Splunk alerts and describe them?

When a certain condition is satisfied, Splunk alerts are actions that are triggered; the user defines these circumstances. To be informed anytime something goes wrong with your system, you can utilise Splunk Alerts. For instance, the user can configure Alerts so that the administrator will receive an email message if three unsuccessful login attempts occur within a 24-hour period.

When establishing alerts, the following choices are available:

To transmit messages to Hipchat or Github, a webhook can be set up. You can send a message to a number of machines using this email, along with a topic, priority, and message body. You can attach results as.CSV files, PDF files, or directly in the message body to make sure the recipient sees them and recognises the alarms that have been fired, the conditions they were fired at, and the actions that have been performed.

On the basis of criteria like an IP address or machine name, you can also generate tickets and manage notifications. If a virus outbreak happens, for instance, you don't want every alarm to go off because that would result in a lot of tickets being created in your system, which would be overwhelming. The alert window offers control over these alerts.

26. What does Splunk's Summary Index mean?

Analyses, reports, and summaries generated by Splunk are stored in summary indices. This is a quick and affordable approach to running a query for a long time. In essence, it serves as the default index Splunk Enterprise utilises if the user doesn't specify another. One of the Summary Index's primary characteristics is that you can keep using the analytics and reports even after the data has aged.

27. How can you prevent specific events from being indexed by Splunk?

What can you do to stop events from being entered into Splunk if you don't want to index all of your events in Splunk? In your application development cycle, debug messages are a nice illustration of this.

By adding such debug messages to the null queue, they can be ignored. This is accomplished by sending the remaining events to the NULL queue while specifying a regex that matches the required events. In transforms., conf, and null queues are specified at the forwarder level. An example that only drops events that contain the debug message are provided below.

28. What function does Splunk's time zone property serve?

When looking for occurrences from a fraud or security standpoint, a time zone is an important consideration. This is so that Splunk can utilise the time zone that your browser specifies. The time zone for the device or computer system you're using is then picked up by your browser. Therefore, if you search for your intended event in the wrong time zone, you will not be able to find it. When data is entered into Splunk, the timezone is detected, and it is crucial when searching and comparing data from various sources. For your London data centre, your Singapore data centre, etc., you can search for events arriving at 4:00 PM IST, for example. Therefore, the timezone property is essential.

29. How can the existing LDAP configurations be found or changed?

To find out about or change the current LDAP configurations, use the following actions: Under users & authentication, select the access control button. Then select LDAP, and from the resulting page, you can simply manage particular tactics, analyse the data, and keep track of how LDAP maps to Splunk roles.

30. What is a lookup command in Splunk?

When you need to retrieve specific fields from an external file (such as a CSV file or any Python-based script) in order to determine the value of an event, lookup commands are utilised. It helps to refer to fields in an external CSV file that match fields in your event data, which helps to narrow the search results.

31. State some difference between stats vs eventstats command.

Following are the differences between them.

Stats: The Splunk Stats command creates new fields and produces statistics for each field found in your events (search results).

Eventstats: This generates a statistical result in a manner similar to the stats command. Despite being identical to the Stats command, the Eventstats command adds the aggregate data directly to each event (if only the aggregate is relevant to that event).

32. How should Splunk Enterprise be installed and updated?

First, the installation process should be well-planned and private. Then determine your hardware needs later. Installing Splunk Enterprise on Windows, Unix, Linux, or MoS, among other platforms, is the third step. If necessary, an earlier version of Splunk enterprise can also be used.

33. What are the defaults fields for every event in Splunk?

There are around five default fields, and each event that is entered into Splunk includes a barcode. They are timestamp, index, host, source, and source type.

Splunk MCQ

1. What is Splunk primarily used for?

A) Data visualization
B) Log management and analysis
C) Data storage
D) Web development

Answer: B) Log management and analysis

2. Which of the following is a Splunk forwarder?

A) Universal Forwarder
B) Data Forwarder
C) Stream Forwarder
D) Log Forwarder

Answer: A) Universal Forwarder

3. What language does Splunk use to query data?

A) SQL
B) Python
C) SPL
D) XML

Answer: C) SPL

4. Which of the following is NOT a feature of Splunk?

A) Real-time search and monitoring
B) Machine learning
C) Cloud storage
D) Data visualization

Answer: C) Cloud storage

5. What is the purpose of a Splunk index?

A) To sort data alphabetically
B) To organize and store data
C) To delete old logs
D) To track user activity

Answer: B) To organize and store data

6. In Splunk, what does the "bucket" represent?

A) A collection of events
B) A storage unit for logs
C) A user-defined tag
D) A memory cache

Answer: A) A collection of events

7. What is the default web port for accessing Splunk?

A) 8080
B) 9999
C) 8000
D) 8088

Answer: C) 8000

8. In Splunk, what is a "dashboard"?

A) A tool for uploading logs
B) A way to visualize data in charts and graphs
C) A method to forward logs to another system
D) A command-line interface

Answer: B) A way to visualize data in charts and graphs

9. What does the "eval" command in Splunk do?

A) Evaluates system performance
B) Computes and transforms fields in events
C) Deletes unwanted data
D) Creates data backups

Answer: B) Computes and transforms fields in events

10. In Splunk, what does the "search head" do?

A) Aggregates data from multiple indexes
B) Manages system security
C) Enables distributed searching
D) Stores event data

Answer: C) Enables distributed searching

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed Splunk interview questions. Mastering these Splunk interview questions will significantly boost your chances of success in your next Splunk-related job interview. From understanding the basics of Splunk architecture to diving into advanced topics like data models and custom commands, these questions cover a wide range of essential knowledge areas.

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