SPLK-2002 Online Practice Questions

Explanation:
Within the [clustering] stanza of the server.conf file, the mode attribute defines the functional role of a Splunk instance within an indexer cluster.
Splunk documentation identifies three valid modes:
mode = manager
Defines the node as the Cluster Manager (formerly called the Master Node).
Responsible for coordinating peer replication, managing configurations, and ensuring data integrity across indexers.
mode = peer
Defines the node as an Indexer (Peer Node) within the cluster.
Handles data ingestion, replication, and search operations under the control of the manager node.
mode = searchhead
Defines a Search Head that connects to the cluster for distributed searching and data retrieval.
The value “deployer” (Option C) is not valid within the [clustering] stanza; it applies to Search Head Clustering (SHC) configurations, where it is defined separately in server.conf under [shclustering].
Each mode must be accompanied by other critical attributes such as manager_uri, replication_port, and pass4SymmKey to enable proper communication and security between cluster members.
Reference (Splunk Enterprise Documentation):
• Indexer Clustering: Configure Manager, Peer, and Search Head Modes
• server.conf Reference C [clustering] Stanza Attributes
• Distributed Search and Cluster Node Role Configuration
• Splunk Enterprise Admin Manual C Cluster Deployment Architecture

Explanation:
inputs.conf is a configuration file that contains settings for various types of data inputs, such as files, directories, network ports, scripts, and so on1.
initCrcLength is a setting that specifies the number of characters that the input uses to calculate the CRC (cyclic redundancy check) of a file1. The CRC is a value that uniquely identifies a file based on its content2.
crcSalt is another setting that adds a string to the CRC calculation to force the input to consume files that have matching CRCs1. This can be useful when files have identical headers or when files are renamed or rolled over2.
When troubleshooting a situation where some files within a directory are not being indexed, the ignored files are discovered to have long headers, the first thing that should be added to inputs.conf is to increase the value of initCrcLength. This is because by default, the input only performs CRC checks against the first 256 bytes of a file, which means that files with long headers may have matching CRCs and be skipped by the input2. By increasing the value of initCrcLength, the input can use more characters from the file to calculate the CRC, which can reduce the chances of CRC collisions and ensure that different files are indexed3.
Option C is the correct answer because it reflects the best practice for troubleshooting this situation.
Option A is incorrect because decreasing the value of initCrcLength would make the CRC calculation less reliable and more prone to collisions.
Option B is incorrect because adding a crcSalt with a static string would not help differentiate files with long headers, as they would still have matching CRCs.
Option D is incorrect because adding a crcSalt with the <SOURCE> attribute would add the full directory path to the CRC calculation, which would not help if the files are in the same directory2.
Reference:
1: inputs.conf - Splunk Documentation
2: How the Splunk platform handles log file rotation
3: Solved: Configure CRC salt - Splunk Community

Explanation:
Primary rebalancing automatically occurs when a rolling restart completes, a master node rejoins the cluster, or a peer node joins or rejoins the cluster. These events can cause the distribution of primary buckets to become unbalanced, so the master node will initiate a rebalancing process to ensure that each peer node has roughly the same number of primary buckets. Primary rebalancing does not occur when a captain joins or rejoins the cluster, because the captain is a search head cluster component, not an indexer cluster component. The captain is responsible for search head clustering, not indexer clustering

Explanation:
Decreasing the data model acceleration range will reduce the disk size requirements for a cluster of indexers running Splunk Enterprise Security. Data model acceleration creates tsidx files that consume disk space on the indexers. Reducing the acceleration range will limit the amount of data that is accelerated and thus save disk space. Setting the cluster search factor or replication factor to N-1 will not reduce the disk size requirements, but rather increase the risk of data loss. Increasing the number of buckets per index will also increase the disk size requirements, as each bucket has a minimum size. For more information, see Data model acceleration and Bucket size in the Splunk documentation.

Explanation:
When planning a search head cluster, the following statement is true: All indexers must belong to the underlying indexer cluster (no standalone indexers). A search head cluster is a group of search heads that share configurations, apps, and search jobs. A search head cluster requires an indexer cluster as its data source, meaning that all indexers that provide data to the search head cluster must be members of the same indexer cluster. Standalone indexers, or indexers that are not part of an indexer cluster, cannot be used as data sources for a search head cluster. All search heads do not have to use the same operating system, as long as they are compatible with the Splunk version and the indexer cluster. All search heads do not have to be members of the cluster, as standalone search heads can also search the indexer cluster, but they will not have the benefits of configuration replication and load balancing. The search head captain does not have to be assigned to the largest search head in the cluster, as the captain is dynamically elected from among the cluster members based on various criteria, such as CPU load, network latency, and search load.