Free Splunk SPLK-2002 Practice Exam with Questions & Answers

The curl https://serverhost:8089/services/admin/inputstatus/TailingProcessor:FileStatus command is used to check the status of the tailed files when troubleshooting monitor inputs. Monitor inputs are inputs that monitor files or directories for new data and send the data to Splunk for indexing. The TailingProcessor:FileStatus endpoint returns information about the files that are being monitored by the Tailing Processor, such as the file name, path, size, position, and status. The splunk cmd btool inputs list | tail command is used to list the inputs configurations from the inputs.conf file and pipe the output to the tail command. The splunk cmd btool check inputs layer command is used to check the inputs configurations for syntax errors and layering. The curl https://serverhost:8089/services/admin/inputstatus/TailingProcessor:Tailstatus command does not exist, and it is not a valid endpoint.

Of the following types of files within an index bucket, the rawdata file type may consume the most disk. The rawdata file type contains the compressed and encrypted raw data that Splunk has ingested. The rawdata file type is usually the largest file type in a bucket, because it stores the original data without any filtering or extraction. The bloom filter file type contains a probabilistic data structure that is used to determine if a bucket contains events that match a given search. The bloom filter file type is usually very small, because it only stores a bit array of hashes. The metadata (.data) file type contains information about the bucket properties, such as the earliest and latest event timestamps, the number of events, and the size of the bucket. The metadata file type is also usually very small, because it only stores a few lines of text. The inverted index (.tsidx) file type contains the time-series index that maps the timestamps and event IDs of the raw data. The inverted index file type can vary in size depending on the number and frequency of events, but it is usually smaller than the rawdata file type

 A collection is defined in the collections.conf file, which specifies the name, schema, and permissions of the collection. The kvstore.conf file is used to configure the KV store settings, such as the port, SSL, and replication factor. The other two files do not exist1

The Splunk server name of the member can typically be determined by the serverName attribute in the server.conf file, which is not explicitly shown in the provided snippet. However, based on the provided configuration snippet, we can infer that this search head cluster member is configured to communicate with a cluster master (master_uri) located at node1 and a management node (mgmt_uri) located at node3. The serverName is not the same as the master_uri or mgmt_uri; these URIs indicate the location of the master and management nodes that this member interacts with.

Since the serverName is not provided in the snippet, one would typically look for a setting under the [general] stanza in server.conf. However, given the options and the common naming conventions in a Splunk environment, node3 would be a reasonable guess for the server name of this member, since it is indicated as the management URI within the [shclustering] stanza, which suggests it might be the name or address of the server in question.

For accurate identification, you would need to access the full server.conf file or the Splunk Web on the search head cluster member and look under Settings > Server settings > General settings to find the actual serverName. Reference for these details would be found in the Splunk documentation regarding the configuration files, particularly server.conf.

Splunk internal indexes are the indexes that store Splunk’s own data, such as internal logs, metrics, audit events, and configuration snapshots. By default, Splunk internal indexes are stored in the SPLUNK_HOME/var/lib/splunk directory, along with other user-defined indexes. The SPLUNK_HOME/bin directory contains the Splunk executable files and scripts. The SPLUNK_HOME/var/run directory contains the Splunk process ID files and lock files. The SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/default directory contains the default Splunk configuration files.

Splunk Enterprise Search Optimization documentation consistently emphasizes that filtering data as early as possible in the search pipeline is the most effective way to improve search performance. The base search (the part before the first pipe |) determines the volume of raw events Splunk retrieves from the indexers. Therefore, by applying restrictive conditions early—such as time ranges, indexed fields, and metadata filters—you can drastically reduce the number of events that need to be fetched and processed downstream.

The best practice is to use indexed field filters (e.g., index=security sourcetype=syslog host=server01) combined with search or where clauses at the start of the query. This minimizes unnecessary data movement between indexers and the search head, improving both search speed and system efficiency.

Using non-streaming commands early (Option C) can degrade performance because they require full result sets before producing output. Likewise, focusing solely on shortening queries (Option A) or excessive use of the not operator (Option D) does not guarantee efficiency, as both may still process large datasets.

Filtering early leverages Splunk’s distributed search architecture to limit data at the indexer level, reducing processing load and network transfer.

References (Splunk Enterprise Documentation):

• Search Performance Tuning and Optimization Guide

• Best Practices for Writing Efficient SPL Queries

• Understanding Streaming and Non-Streaming Commands

• Search Job Inspector: Analyzing Execution Costs

 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.

According to the Splunk documentation1, the “Unknown sid” error message means that the search job associated with the link has expired or been deleted. The sid (search ID) is a unique identifier for each search job, and it is used to retrieve the results of the search. If the sid is not found, the search cannot be displayed. The other options are false because:

The users having insufficient permissions would result in a different error message, such as “You do not have permission to view this page” or "You do not have permission to run this search"1.

An add-on needing to be updated would not affect the validity of the sid, unless the add-on changes the search syntax or the data source in a way that makes the search invalid or inaccessible1.

One or more indexers being down would not cause the “Unknown sid” error, as the sid is stored on the search head, not the indexers. However, it could cause other errors, such as “Unable to distribute to peer” or "Search peer has the following message: not enough disk space"1.

Indexed extraction configurations are processed in the indexing phase of the Splunk Enterprise data pipeline. The data pipeline is the process that Splunk uses to ingest, parse, index, and search data. Indexed extraction configurations are settings that determine how Splunk extracts fields from data at index time, rather than at search time. Indexed extraction can improve search performance, but it also increases the size of the index. Indexed extraction configurations are applied in the indexing phase, which is the phase where Splunk writes the data and the .tsidx files to the index. The input phase is the phase where Splunk receives data from various sources and formats. The parsing phase is the phase where Splunk breaks the data into events, timestamps, and hosts. The search phase is the phase where Splunk executes search commands and returns results.

The correct answer is B. Set the Replication Factor based on allowed indexer failure. This is a best practice for adding data resiliency to a single-site indexer cluster, as it ensures that there are enough copies of each bucket to survive the loss of one or more indexers without affecting the searchability of the data1. The Replication Factor is the number of copies of each bucket that the cluster maintains across the set of peer nodes2. The Replication Factor should be set according to the number of indexers that can fail without compromising the cluster’s ability to serve data1. For example, if the cluster can tolerate the loss of two indexers, the Replication Factor should be set to three1.

The other options are not best practices for adding data resiliency. Option A, setting the Replication Factor to 49, is not recommended, as it would create too many copies of each bucket and consume excessive disk space and network bandwidth1. Option C, always using the default Replication Factor of 3, is not optimal, as it may not match the customer’s requirements and expectations for data availability and performance1. Option D, setting the Replication Factor based on allowed search head failure, is not relevant, as the Replication Factor does not affect the search head availability, but the searchability of the data on the indexers1. Therefore, option B is the correct answer, and options A, C, and D are incorrect.

1: Configure the replication factor 2: About indexer clusters and index replication