Splunk Archives | TekStream

Working with Multivalue Fields in Splunk

October 23, 2020/0 Comments/in Blog, Splunk /by Caroline Lea

By: Yetunde Awojoodu | Splunk Consultant

Have you ever come across fields with multiple values in your event data in Splunk and wondered how to modify them to get the results you need? Each field in an event typically has a single value, but for events such as email logs you can often find multiple values in the “To” and “Cc” fields. Multivalue fields can also result from data augmentation using lookups. To properly evaluate and modify multivalue fields, Splunk has some multivalue search commands and functions. If you ignore multivalue fields in your data, you may end up with missing and inaccurate data, sometimes reporting only the first value of the multivalue field(s) in your results.

In this article, I have applied a simple scenario to illustrate how different multivalue commands and functions can be used individually or combined to meet different use cases. I will cover some common search commands and functions that work with multivalue fields. Note that multivalue functions can be used with eval, where or fieldformat search commands. In my illustrations, I employed the “makeresults” command to generate hypothetical data for my searches so that anyone can recreate them without the need to onboard data. Read more on the makeresults command.

Scenario

Within one purchase transaction, Mary bought eggs, milk and bread. She paid for the eggs with cash and covered the remaining items using her credit card. We can assume that this purchase transaction is equivalent to a log event. The values for each multivalue field are separated by the comma delimiter.

Example 1:

Please note that in all the results, I have deliberately excluded the default field, “_time” which is a default field generated when the makeresults command is used.

Makemv (Command)

This command is used to split the values of a field that appear like a single value into multiple values within an event based on the delimiter. A delimiter specifies the boundary between characters.

Example 2:

The values in the “groceries” field have been split within the same event based on the comma delimiter. The values in the “payment” field remain the same. The report shows the method of payment for all three grocery items but it does not specify the actual payment method used for each item. To expand the event into three separate events, one for each item and show the exact payment for each grocery item, we will need a combination of commands and functions.

Mvzip (Function)

The mvzip function is used to tie corresponding values in the different fields of an event together. This helps to keep the association among the field values. This function takes two multivalue fields, X and Y, and combines them by stitching together the first value of X with the first value of field Y, then the second with the second, and so on.

Example 3:

The new field, “zipped” is the result of the mvzip function. The values of the groceries and payment fields are properly zipped together before expanding into separate events. Note that at this point, the results are still within one event.

Mvexpand (Command)

This command expands the values of a multivalue field into separate events, one event for each value in the multivalue field. All other single field values and unexpanded multivalue field values will remain the same in each new event.

Example 4:

Mvexpand works great at splitting the values of a multivalue field into multiple events while keeping other field values in the event as is but it only works on one multivalue field at a time. For instance, in the above example, mvexpand cannot be used to split both “zipped” and “payment” fields at the same time. The next function will come in handy to accomplish this.

Mvindex (Function)

Having zipped the values and created one field, “zipped”, you can now expand the “zipped” field into multiple events. The mvindex function is a little more intricate. To further tie field values together so that accurate associations are made in the process of expanding the values into separate events, mvindex will separate the existing multivalued field into two chosen fields using index values. Indexes can start at zero if labeling from the first value. For example, if values= a,e,i,o,u; a=0 e=1 i=2 o=3 u=4. You could also label from the last character with -1; a=-5 e=-4 i=-3 o=-2 u=-1 or you could choose to have a combination of both index patterns; a=0 e=1 i=2 o=-2 u=-1.

Example 5:

Mvindex was used to assign index 0 to the first value in the group which represents groceries and index 1 to the second value representing payment method so that when the fields are split, the values will not get mixed up. The “split” command was used to separate the values on the comma delimiter. Using mvindex and split functions, the values are now separated into one value per event and the values correspond correctly.

Tip – The stats command can also be used in place of mvexpand to split the fields into separate events as shown below:

Example 6:

Mvcount (Function)

This function can be used to quickly determine the number of values in a multivalue field using the delimiter. If the field contains a single value, the function returns 1 and if the field has no values, the function returns NULL.

Example 7:

As with single value fields, keep in mind that you may need a combination of multivalue commands/functions to get your report in the required format that will meet your specific use case.

Note: If there are situations in your data where a field is sometimes multivalue and other times null, refer here

Want to learn more about working with multivalue fields in Splunk? Contact us today!

A Use Case for Ingest Time Eval

October 2, 2020/0 Comments/in Blog, Splunk /by Caroline Lea

By: Zubair Rauf | Senior Splunk Consultant

A few days ago, I came across an interesting challenge that a customer put in front of me. They had been facing this for some time now. The customer works with an app that logs all of its events 7 hours ahead of Eastern time, irrespective of daylight savings time. The server clock reset to midnight when Eastern time was 5:00 PM all year round. To work around this problem and make sure the events were always synced with the correct time zone, they adjusted the sourcetype for those logs every time daylight savings time started or ended.

When presented with this problem, I spent a good amount of time to find a time zone that would change with eastern time when daylight savings time changed and have the same time offset as those logs. Not having any success on that front, I started looking at alternatives to help my customer overcome their issue and I came across this powerful way to solve the problem with a one-time fix with the sourcetype.

Splunk introduced Ingest time evals with Splunk Enterprise 7.2. Ingest time evals are similar to search time evals that have helped Splunk be the powerful tool that it always has been. Ingest time evals allow you to write an EVAL formula that is executed at ingestion time to create a new indexed field or to update a field’s value. They give you more control over Splunk index time fields as well. In my particular case, having control over and being able to manipulate index time fields helped me just do the trick for my customer.

For starters, _time is an index time field that is parsed from the raw log event. If the event does not have a time, the indexer will assign it with a current time when the event is ingested. In my particular challenge, the _time field needed a fixed offset by five hours as it was five hours ahead of eastern time.

To setup ingest time evals, we have to work with transforms.conf, props.conf, and fields.conf (only if creating new fields at ingest time). To further elaborate on the process of setting up ingest time evals to create new index time fields or manipulate existing fields at index time, we have used a sample log from a Cisco device.

To do a comparison, I ingested the log file with a custom sourcetype I created to parse the events.

With the above sourcetype, the following events were ingested.

If you look closely, the date/time was parsed exactly as it appears in the raw log event. Now if the raw event had a timestamp that needed to be offset, we could change the _time field at ingest time using ingest time eval.

To make my required changes, I will have to add an INGEST_EVAL expression in a transforms stanza in transforms.conf to update the _time field at ingest time after it has been parsed out from the actual event.

In the above example, I have used INGEST_EVAL to update my _time field to add 7200 seconds to it. This translates into 2 hours. I have also used the “:=” instead of “=” so that Splunk updates the _time field and not create another _time value resulting in a multivalued _time field in the final event. In this case, “:=” will overwrite the existing value in the field.

The above screenshot shows the updated _time field after the same log file has been ingested with the updated props and transforms. If you closely look at the Time column in the above screenshot in the first event it shows the timestamp being parsed as 01/16/20 1:43:43 PM but the timestamp in the event is 01/16/2020 11:43:31 AM. This tells us that the INGEST_EVAL expression in our transforms.conf successfully worked.

At this point, I would caution you to thoroughly test your INGEST_EVAL on a dev Splunk server so that you are sure that your eval works.

Ingest time eval can also be used to create new index time fields. While updating the _time field to offset the time difference, I thought about creating some custom index fields for demonstration purposes. This would further demonstrate how powerful ingest time evals are and how they can be useful.

Considering I was updating the _time field with my new timestamp, I figured it would be good to have a field that still parses and stores the original time. I named that field orig_time. This field is basically derived from the original _time field that was parsed before it was changed into the new timestamp.

I also thought it would be good to calculate the raw length of the event at ingest time, as that would create a field for me to calculate the size of the ingested data later. I particularly leaned towards demonstrating this, because not too long ago, I was also faced with the challenge to report host-level licensing information for every index. This helps Splunk users in an organization understand how much data their hosts are sending to Splunk.

Now, this is an easy fix if your environment is small. In that case, you can use the license_usage.log file available in the _internal index to calculate your license usage by index, sourcetype, source, or host. It definitely does become a problem when your environment grows too large. When the unique tuples cross 2000 by default, the license manager starts squashing source/host values and only index, sourcetype values remain in license_usage.log.

To work with this issue, I set up a daily license usage search which calculates the length of _raw for the past day for all the indexes and stores it in a summary index. This search runs at off-peak hours when the system is not being used by other users. That helps me populate my dashboards on demand for the users who want to see this data the next day.

Having raw event size calculated for every event at index size will definitely help me rid myself of those expensive searches that need to be run every night, these searches can be less reliable in case the search head that runs the summary generating search crashes. At index time I create a new field “event_size” using INGEST_EVAL in transforms.conf. The settings used to do this are as below;

If you look closely at the settings;

Transforms.conf

I have added two new stanzas to the transforms.conf to create the evals for the new fields, orig_time, and event_size.

Fields.conf

As we are creating two new fields at ingest time, we add their names as stanzas in fields.conf and make sure these fields are indexed by adding the parameter “INDEXED = true”.

Props.conf

I have updated the TRANSFORMS parameter in the relevant sourcetype. If you notice, the order of the TRANSFORMS stanza actually dictates which transform will be applied first to the data being parsed. In this particular case, the stanza is:

TRANSFORMS = orig-time,time-offset,event-size

In this specific transform the order will be as follows:

orig-time will preserve the original parsed time into the orig_time
time-offset will update the existing _time field to be offset by 02 hours.
event-size will calculate the total length of the event and create a new event_size field.

If you look at the final screenshot (above) closely on the left under “Interesting Fields” you will see that there are two new fields that you can see. These include orig_time and event_size

Now to calculate the total license usage by any measure, you can use your event_size with a | tstats search which will be many folds faster than a regular search.

There can be many other uses for Ingest Time Evals, one of which is listed on the documents page. To find out more, please visit Splunk documentation at https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.0.2/Data/IngestEval#Why_use_ingest-time_eval.3F

If you want to learn more or have TekStream help with implementing some Splunk use cases, contact us today!

Splunk Phantom Workbooks

September 11, 2020/0 Comments/in Blog, Splunk /by Caroline Lea

By: Joe Wohar | Senior Splunk Consultant

Splunk Phantom is an amazing software used to automate cybersecurity processes, however, many companies do not know that they could also be using Phantom for case management. Arguably the most powerful, yet unknown to many, case management feature of Phantom is the ability to create and use workbooks.

If you’re familiar with Phantom, then you know that Phantom playbooks are repeatable processes that Phantom runs through against events. Phantom workbooks are repeatable, defined processes that analysts run through against events. However, they’re typically only used when an analyst needs to get involved. When an event is determined to be a threat that needs to be investigated by an analyst, the event should be promoted to a case. This can be done with a manual change done on the event (by clicking the toolbox icon button) or by having the conditions specified in a playbook that can then turn the event into a case.

Image 1: A workbook must be selected when converting an event to a case.

One of the biggest advantages of workbooks is that it’s a great way of ensuring that your analysts (new or old) are following the same set of steps when working cases. SOPs help define processes for your analysts to follow, but workbooks put those processes right into the case and make the work easily trackable. Workbooks are made up of 2 trackable components: phases and tasks.

Phases

Phases split the investigation into different sections, such as identification, acquisition, analysis, and reporting. Individual SLAs can be set for each phase of a workbook. When SLAs are missed/breached, there is a panel on the Phantom home page for tracking that:

Image 2: Home page SLA breach tracker.

Phases are made up of tasks, which are where the specific steps for investigations are listed.

Image 3: Adding new phases/tasks to a workbook.

Tasks

Tasks are very customizable, so they can be pretty general with few trackable requirements or be very specific with many tracked steps. First, tasks can have a default owner assigned to them, which could be useful if you want to have a “review” task so that a more experienced analyst can review a newer analyst’s work, however, I think most often you’d want to leave that blank so that tasks can be assigned to the analyst working the case. The description section of the task is where you can describe the specific things that should be done in the task. If you don’t want to track specific steps, you can simply use this section to create a list of steps for analysts to follow. However, if you have very specific steps involved in a task, you may want to use the description just for describing the process and then have the steps listed as actions or playbooks. This brings us to the next part of tasks, adding actions and playbooks.

Actions and playbooks are Phantom automation being added to the human process. The actions and playbooks added to a task are limited to the actions available in your configured apps and the playbooks that you have available in your Phantom instance. Then, when an analyst goes to run the action from the investigation screen, the action is already pulled up and they just need to enter the details.

Image 4: Workbook opened in a case with 2 tasks.

Image 5: Pop-up window from clicking the “run query” action in the workbook.

Running a playbook from a workbook is even simpler. Just click the playbook and click the “Run Playbook” button.

Image 6: Pop-up window from clicking the “Disabled User” playbook in the workbook.

As analysts move through the tasks and complete them, the phase’s tracker will be updated to show completion and whether or not tasks were completed on time and if the phase was completed on time.

Images 7 & 8: First task complete and then both tasks completed.

If you’re not using Phantom for case management, then you’re likely using Phantom to create tickets and add details to them in another software, which is costing you more in hardware and licensing. By using Phantom for case management, you’ll save the cost of another software and its hardware while using software you’ve already bought at no additional cost.

Not sure how to get started with workbooks? Try taking one of your best defined SOPs and make a workbook for it. If you’re not currently a Phantom customer and would like to try it out, you can download the OVA by registering here: https://my.phantom.us/

Want to learn more about Phantom workbooks? Contact us today!

The Bin Command

August 28, 2020/0 Comments/in Blog, Splunk /by Caroline Lea

By: Forrest Lybarger | Splunk Consultant

The bin command is a relatively uncommon, but incredibly useful tool in Splunk. How it works is a user gives it a field (the field must be numeric) then Splunk groups the events by the specified field. The next important thing to know about bin is that the time chart command calls the bin command behind the scenes, so only use the bin command if the time chart command can’t perform the task. Below I will go through the options for the bin command and examples of how to use it.

At its most basic level, the bin command will group events in groups based on intervals. For example: “…| bin GB as bin_size” will create the bin_size field and assign a range to the event such as 0-10 or 10-20. The result looks like the screenshot below.

Without the “as bin_size” part of the command the range value will be assigned to the GB field instead. So long as the field is numeric, the bin command can group events along ranges, but utilizing the command’s options will give users more control over the results.

Bins

The bins option is very simple in application. It limits the number of buckets the command can create by establishing a maximum. For example: “…| bin bins=20 linecount as bin_size” will limit bin_size to only having 20 different values, but it might not reach 20 values. The results could look something like the screenshot below.

Splunk determines the size of the buckets on its own here, but there is a way to control the bucket size with other options.

Minspan

The minspan option lets a user set the minimum size of buckets. This means that you can prevent a bucket from being too granular for your use case. For example: “…| bin minspan=100 linecount as bin_size” prevents the results from grouping into anything smaller than a 0-100 bucket.

Span

The span option is by far the most useful option in the bunch. It allows you to control the size of the buckets, which, when combined with the other options, gives users much more control over the bin command’s results. For example: “…| bin span=5 linecount as bin_size” creates buckets with a size of 5. The span value can be numeric, time-based, or logarithmic.

Start/End

The end option also controls the size of buckets, but in an indirect way. When given a value, the end option causes the bin command to change the way it automatically calculates bucket sizes by having it use the end value as the highest value. For example: “…| bin end=1000 linecount as bin_size” causes the bin command to make one large bucket of size 0-100 because the bin command thinks results range 0-1000 and then it wants to break the results into buckets of 100.

The span option overrides end.

The start option does a similar operation, but on the beginning value and is also overridden by the span option.

Aligntime

The aligntime option is last and is only valid when dividing events by _time. This option can offset the bucket partitioning and is ignored if span is in days, months, or years. Aligntime is almost always used in conjunction with span in order to set the bucket size. For example: “…| bin span=2h aligntime=@d+1h _time as bucket” will build 2h buckets with a 1hr offset, meaning the buckets cover times between odd hours.

Conclusion

While the bin command isn’t the most common search command in SPL, it is very powerful in specific circumstances. If you ever encounter data that you want to group but might not want to use a transforming command or many other niche cases, you can use the bin command to group events. Since it is also a very underutilized command, you can possibly save someone else a lot of time with this added knowledge.

Want to learn more about the bin command? Contact us today!

Masking Important Data in Your Splunk Environment

August 21, 2020/0 Comments/in Blog, Splunk /by Caroline Lea

By: Aaron Dobrzeniecki | Splunk Consultant

If you have problems or questions regarding masking important data when it gets ingested into Splunk, this is the blog for you. Common use cases include masking credit card numbers, SSN, passwords, account IDs, or anything that should not be visible to the public. When masking data before it gets indexed into Splunk, you want to make sure you (if applicable) test it in a dev environment. A great website to use is www.regex101.com.

The overall methodology of how the two approaches work specifically relies on the correctness of your regular expression. Splunk will look for strings that match the defined regex pattern. You can then tell Splunk to strip out, replace the matching string, or replace part of the string. Both of the methods below do the same exact thing – match a regex and replace the values – but both methods do it in a slightly different manner.

In the example data below, I will be masking the account IDs to only show the last four digits of the account ID. There are two ways you can mask data before it gets ingested into Splunk.

Method 1:

Using props.conf and transforms.conf to modify the data so that the first 12 characters of the account ID turn into “x”‘s.

One sample event:

[02/Nov/2019:16:05:20] VendorID=9999 Code=D AcctID=9999999999999999

When ingested into Splunk using the below props.conf and transforms.conf the event will be indexed as so:

[02/Nov/2019:16:05:20] VendorID=9999 Code=D AcctID=xxxxxxxxxxxx9999

props.conf

[mysourcetype]

TRANSFORMS-data_mask=data_masking

transforms.conf

[data_masking]

SOURCE_KEY=_raw

REGEX=(^.*)(\sAcctID=)\d{12}(\d*)

FORMAT=$1$2xxxxxxxxxxxx$3

DEST_KEY=_raw

Specify the field you want Splunk to search for the matching data in using the SOURCE_KEY parameter. Splunk will attempt to match the regex specified in the REGEX setting. If it matches, Splunk will replace the matching portion with the value from FORMAT and then write the transformed value to the field specified in DEST_KEY (which is the same in this example). The values for FORMAT are as followed. The dollar sign digit relates to the capture groups. In the example above you can see that there are 3 total capture groups: (^.*) is the first capture group; (\sAcctID=) is the second capture group; and finally (\d*) is the third capture group (I included a third capture group to specify extra digits, if they exist in the event or not). See how we did not include the \d{12}? This is because THAT regex string is what we want to mask.

The basis behind masking your important data is to make sure that you have created the correct regex. In the example above I created the entire regex string that encompasses an entire event. In doing so, we are able to bring back the entire event using the capture groups and ridding the event of the data to be masked.

Another way to mask important data from being ingested into Splunk is to use the SEDCMD to replace the desired texts with X’s or whatever you want to show that the data has been masked. Using the same sample event above we will get the same results as above, but using a different method.

Method 2:

props.conf

[mysourcetype]

SEDCMD-replace=s/AcctID\=\d{12}/AcctID=xxxxxxxxxxxx/g

The above props.conf will mask the data as desired. The key here is to make sure that your regex string (the one that is replacing the original regex string) includes the part that you want to keep and does not include the string that you want to get rid of. With SEDCMD, Splunk replaces the current regex with the regex you specify in the third segment of the SEDCMD.

In conclusion, there are two ways to anonymize data with Splunk Enterprise:

Use the SEDCMD like a sed script to do replacements and substitutions. The sed script method is easier to do, takes less time to configure, and is slightly faster than a transform. But there are limits to how many times you can invoke SEDCMD and what it can do.

Use a regular expression transform (method 1). This method takes longer to configure, but is easier to modify after the initial configuration and can be assigned to multiple data inputs more easily.

Want to learn more about masking important data in your Splunk environment? Contact us today!

Create Splunk Indexes and HEC Inputs with Ansible

August 14, 2020/0 Comments/in Blog, Splunk /by Caroline Lea

By: Brandon Mesa | Splunk Consultant

Managing Splunk .conf files is a day to day routine for most, if not all, Splunk admins. As your Splunk environment matures, you’ll find yourself making constant .conf changes to improve operational efficiency. For example, as new data sources are onboarded, new indexes and parsing settings are implemented to maintain efficiency and the appropriate data segregation controls in place. To access this new data or index you might also have to create a new role or manage an existing one in order to set the appropriate data permissions to a specific set of users. You may also explore alternate data inputs such as making use of the HTTP Event Collector.

Manually completing these tasks can become time-consuming and error-prone. While you can’t automate every change on the back end, you may be able to standardize some of the common configuration changes. For example, common tasks include creating a new index, role, HEC token, and many more. You can use a variety of automation tools to manage your .conf files and reduce time spent making manual .conf changes. This blog will show you how to use Ansible playbooks to automate common Splunk tasks including index and HEC input creation.

To keep this blog simple, examples will be applied to a local standalone instance in the $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local path. The location of .conf changes will vary depending on your specific environment.

The following Ansible playbooks are used in this blog:

create_index.yaml

create_hec_token.yaml

Create an Index

To create a new index with Ansible playbooks, run the following command:

% ansible-playbook create_index.yaml -e ‘{“index_name”:”ansible_index”}’

Shown below, you can see the new index “ansible_index” has now been created on the indexes.conf.

If you run the playbook again to create a new index with an existing index name, an error will be returned and escape the playbook execution. For example, if we try to create the “ansible_index” index a second time, the playbook escapes execution and returns the following message:

“ansible_index – Index string already found in indexes.conf”

Take a look at the returned message for the “Confirm if index already exists” task. The playbook reads the indexes.conf file and looks for the index_name variable passed at the time the CLI command is run. If the string is found in the file, the playbook skips the stanza creation.

Create a HEC Token

We’ve created a new index for all the Ansible related data. Now let’s create a new HEC input that will constraint incoming data to the new index. To create a new HEC token, run the following Ansible playbook:

% ansible-playbook create_hec_token.yaml -e ‘{“username”:”admin”,”password”:”Pa$$w0rd”,”token_name”:”ansible_token”,”index”:”ansible_index”,”indexes”:”ansible_index”}’

Playbook execution will look something like this:

Now let’s validate our token has been created:

Automation tools can facilitate day-to-day operations related to your Splunk infrastructure. It’s not likely that all .conf changes will be automated in your environment as you’ll come across unique use cases that will require specific configurations. However, you can automate some of the common manual tasks, like the ones shown above, to reduce time spent and avoid any silly mistakes.

Want to learn more about creating Splunk indexes and HEC inputs with Ansible? Contact us today!

Auditing Apps for Splunk 8.0

July 31, 2020/0 Comments/in Blog, Splunk /by Caroline Lea

By: Eric Howell | Splunk Consultant

Introduction

The release of Splunk 8.0 marked a pivotal change in the functional workings of Splunk; the tool transitioned from leveraging Python 2 to Python 3. This shift is due to the fact that support was dropped for Python 2 by the governing vendor on January 1^st, 2020. Due to this change, administrators working to maintain a supported, healthy environment will be required to perform a comprehensive review of app-Splunk version compatibility and upgrades in addition to usual upgrade procedures.

Audit Existing Applications

Compile List of Installed Apps and TAs

In each environment, make an inventory of the deployed Splunk architecture components:

Search Heads – taking into account any stand-alone instances that might not be in the primary cluster (example: Enterprise Security)
Indexers
Monitoring Console
Deployer
Deployment Server
License Master
Cluster Master
Heavy Forwarders – if applicable

For each of these components, compile a list of the installed and active applications (apps) and Technology Add-Ons (TAs). This can be done by running the following SPL query in the Search UI:

| rest /services/apps/local
| stats count(title) by splunk_server label version eai:acl.app author
| rename label AS App, version AS Version, eai:acl.app AS Base, author AS Author
| table splunk_server, App, Base, Author, Version

Review Installed Apps on SplunkBase

The above search will provide you with the necessary information to compare the installed version of an App against that found within Splunkbase, including the App Name, Author, Version, and installation status. This information will need to be compared against what is found by locating the app within Splunkbase at https://Splunkbase.Splunk.com .

As an example, using the Splunk Add-on for Microsoft Windows:

App	Author	Version	Installed
Splunk Add-on for Microsoft Windows	Splunk	4.8.2	Yes

Searching this add-on in SplunkBase leads us to the following link: https://splunkbase.splunk.com/app/742/

The SplunkBase page for each app contains information regarding app version (adjustable via the dropdown indicated in the next image) and compatible versions of Splunk Enterprise. The details tab often contains app-specific information (frequently linking to Splunk supported documentation) and can provide insight into the appropriate upgrade path for the app. These upgrade paths are critical to follow due to major adjustments often made in newer iterations of any app. These iterative changes can cause negative impact if not accounted for: loss of data, non-functional commands, and new formats for dashboards.

If your environment includes apps that are not found in SplunkBase (very likely due to custom app creation), use your best judgment. The Upgrade Readiness app, which is discussed later in this document, will provide further insight into likely xml or python related complications found in any apps that are scanned. It is advised further in this document to create a Dev environment to test these upgrades prior to releasing in Prod, and these apps are perfect candidates for additional testing outside of Prod.

Fig 1. SplunkBase page breakdown

Compile the list of installed apps and TAs in the environment and cross-reference them with SplunkBase to provide insight:

Does the current version of the App support the version of Splunk you are upgrading to?
What is the upgrade path for the App?
Does the app still benefit from ongoing development?
What Apps can be removed from the environment or will cause conflict once the upgrade has been performed?

Run Splunk Platform Upgrade Readiness App

SplunkBase link: https://SplunkBase.Splunk.com/app/4698/

Running the Upgrade Readiness App provides will provide further insight into whether your apps are ready for the upgrade to Splunk 8. As Python 2 is no longer vendor-supported, continued use of apps reliant on Python 2 can leave your environment vulnerable to intrusion or bad actors. The Upgrade Readiness App will advise which of your apps contain python files that are not dual-compatible or strictly compatible with Python 3, and it will also indicate xml files that support Splunk’s Advanced XML which has been sunset and replaced by SimpleXML. Additional details can be found here:

https://docs.Splunk.com/Documentation/UpgradeReadiness/latest/Use/About

After running the Readiness App each of the installed apps on the Splunk instance should return a value result, such as, Passed, Warning, Skipped, etc.

Please note that this app will need to be installed on each instance of Splunk for comprehensive review.

Preparing Next Steps

From the above steps, the path forward should emerge after documenting the findings.

Identify which apps/TAs can be and require upgrade
Identify Apps that are no longer supported
Remove and/or disable Apps that are no longer relevant in the environment or will cause issues post-upgrade.
Identify Apps that have not been thoroughly documented and will require additional testing (ideally in a Dev environment).

Once the plan has been developed with the steps above, separate the apps by the appropriate configuration management tool/server (Cluster Master, Deployer, etc)

Performing App Upgrades

The major contributing factor to lost functionality when upgrading to Splunk 8.0+ is found in apps that leverage a great deal of Python files that are not dual-compatible with Python 2 and Python 3. This is discussed in greater detail in the links below:

To maintain a functional, supported version of the Enterprise Security app throughout the upgrade process, it will likely be necessary to upgrade Apps as you upgrade Splunk. Several apps are heavily Python-dependent in their operation and will feature a Python-version change between app versions.

These Python version-specific apps, if they are being leveraged in your environment, should be upgraded during the same scheduled change window as the Splunk Enterprise upgrade to 8.0+. Otherwise, they will cease to function correctly (or at all) due to their reliance on Python 3. The apps that require this specific process are listed here:

Splunk Enterprise Security App ver 6.1
Splunk Machine Learning Toolkit ver 5.0
Deep Learning Toolkit ver 3.0
Python for Scientific Computer ver 2.0

Want to learn more about auditing apps in Splunk 8.0? Contact us today!

How to Connect AWS and Splunk to Ingest Log Data

July 17, 2020/0 Comments/in AWS, Blog, Splunk /by Caroline Lea

By: Don Arnold | Splunk Consultant

Though a number of cloud solutions have popped up over the past 10 years, Amazon Web Services, better known as simply AWS, seems to be taking the lead in cloud infrastructure. And, companies that are using AWS have either migrated their entire infrastructure or are using on-premises systems with some AWS services in a hybrid solution. Whichever may be the case, the AWS environment is within the security boundary and should be a part of the System Security Plan (SSP) and needs to include Continuous Monitoring, which is a requirement in most security frameworks. Splunk meets the Continuous Monitoring requirements, which includes instances and services within AWS.

Data push

There are 2 separate ways to get data from AWS into Splunk. The first is to “push” data from AWS using “Kinesis Firehose” to a Splunk. This requires IP connectivity between AWS and a Splunk Heavy Forwarder, a HTTP Event Collector token, and the “Splunk Add-on for Amazon Kinesis Firehose” from Splunkbase.

Splunk Heavy Forwarder Setup

Ensure the organization firewall has a rule to allow connectivity from AWS to the Splunk Heavy Forwarder over HTTPs.
Go to Splunkbase.com and download/install the “Splunk Add-on for Amazon Kinesis Firehose” – Restart the Splunk Heavy Forwarder
Create an HTTP Event Collector token:
1. Go to Settings > Data Inputs > HTTP Event Collector
2. Select New Token
3. Enter a name for your token. Example: “AWS”. Select Next
4. For Source type, click Select > Structured and choose “aws:firehose:json”. For App Context choose “Add-on for Kinesis Firehose”. Select Review
5. Verify the settings and select
6. Go back to Settings > Data Inputs > HTTP Event Collector and select Global Settings
7. For “All Tokens” select Enabled, ensure “Enable SSL” is selected, and the “HTTP port number” is set to 8088. Select Save.
8. Copy the “Token Value” for setup in AWS Kinesis Firehose.

AWS Kinesis Firehose Setup

Log in to AWS and go to the Kinesis service and select the “Get Started” button.
On the top right you will see “Deliver Streaming data with Kinesis Firehose Delivery Streams.” Select the “Create Delivery System” button.
Give your delivery system a name. Under Source, choose “Direct PUT or other sources”. Select the “Next” button.
Select “Disabled” for both Data transformation and Record format conversion.
For Destination select “Splunk”. For Splunk cluster endpoint, enter the URL with port 8088 of your Splunk Heavy Forwarder. For Splunk endpoint type select “Raw endpoint”. For Authentication, token enter the Splunk HTTP Event Collector token number created in the Splunk Heavy Forwarder setup.
For S3 backup select a S3 bucket. If one does not exist you can create one by selecting “Create New”. Select Next.
Scroll down to Permissions and click “Create new or choose” button. Choose an existing IAM role or create one. Click Allow to return to the previous menu. Select Next.
Review the settings and select Create Delivery Stream.
You will see a message stating “Successfully created delivery stream…”.

Test the Connection

It is recommended that test data be used to verify the new connection by choosing the delivery stream and selecting “Test with Demo Data”. Go to step 2 and select “Start sending demo data”. You will see the delivery stream sending demo data to Splunk.
Log into Splunk and enter index=main sourcetype=aws:firehose:json to verify events are streaming into Splunk.
If no events show up, go back and verify all steps have been configured properly and firewall rules are set to allow AWS HTTPs events through to the Splunk Heavy Forwarder.

Send Production Data

Go to AWS Kinesis and select the delivery stream your setup. The status for the delivery stream should display “Active”.
Go to Splunk and verify events are ingesting: index=mainsourcetype=aws:firehose:json and verify the timestamp is correct with the events.

Data pull

The second way to get data into Splunk from AWS is to have Splunk “pull” data via a REST API call.

AWS Prerequisites Setup

There are AWS service prerequisites that require set up prior to performing REST API calls from the Splunk Heavy Forwarder. The prerequisites can be found in this document: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/AddOns/released/AWS/ConfigureAWS
Ensure all prerequisites are configured in AWS prior to configuring the “Splunk Add-on for AWS” on the Splunk Heavy Forwarder.

Splunk Heavy Forwarder Setup

Ensure the organization firewall has a rule to allow connectivity from the Splunk Heavy Forwarder to AWS.
Go to Splunkbase.com and install the “Splunk Add-on for AWS” – Restart the Splunk Heavy Forwarder.
Launch the “Splunk Add-on for AWS” on the Splunk Heavy Forwarder.
Go to the Configurations tab.
1. Account tab: Select Add. Give the connection a name, enter the Key ID and Secret Key from the AWS IAM user account and select Add.

(To get the Key ID and Secret Key, go to AWS IAM > Access management > Users > (select user) > Security credentials > Create access key > Access Key ID and Secret Access key)

IAM Role tab: Select Add. Give the Role a name, enter the Role ARN and select Add.

(To get the Role ARN, go to AWS IAM > Access management > Roles > (select role). At the top you will see the Role ARN)

Go to the Inputs tab. Select Create New Input and select the type of data input from AWS to ingest. Each selection is different and all will use the User and Role created in the previous step. Go through the setup and select the AWS region, source type, and index and select Save.

Test the Connection

Log into Splunk and enter index=main sourcetype=aws* to verify events are streaming into Splunk. Verify the sourcetype matches the one you selected in the input.
If no events show up, go back and verify all steps have been configured properly and firewall rules are set to allow AWS HTTPs events through to the Splunk Heavy Forwarder.

With the popularity of AWS, more environments are starting to host hybrid solutions for a myriad of reasons. With that, using Splunk to maintain Continuous Monitoring is easily achieved with 2 different approaches for monitoring the expanded security boundary into the cloud. TekStream Solutions has Splunk and AWS engineers on staff with years of experience and can assist you in connecting your AWS environment to Splunk.

References

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/AddOns/released/Firehose/About

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/AddOns/released/Firehose/ConfigureFirehose

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/AddOns/released/AWS/Description

https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/AddOns/released/AWS/ConfigureAWS

Want to learn more about connecting AWS and Splunk to ingest log data? Contact us today!

Splunk, AWS, and the Battle for Burst Balance

June 26, 2020/0 Comments/in Blog, Splunk /by Caroline Lea

By: Karl Cepull | Senior Director, Operational Intelligence

Splunk and AWS: two of the most adopted tools of our time. Splunk allows fantastic insight into your company’s data at an incredible pace. AWS allows an affordable alternative to on-premise or even other cloud environments. Together both of these tools can come together and allow for one of the best combinations to further the overall ability to show the value in your data. But, there are many systems that need to come together to make all of this work.

In AWS, you have multiple types of storage options available to you for your Splunk servers with their Elastic Block Storage (EBS) offering. There are multiple drive types that you can use – e.g. “io1”, “gp2”, and others. The ‘gp2’ volume type is perhaps the most common one, particularly because it is usually the cheapest. However, when using this volume type, you need to be aware of Burst Balance.

Burst Balance can be a wonderful system. At its core, what Burst Balance does is allow your volume’s disk IOPS to burst higher when needed, without you needing to pay for the guaranteed IOPS all of the time (like you do with the “io1” volume type). What are IOPS? This stands for Inputs/Outputs Per Second, and represent the number of reads and writes that can occur over time. Allowing the IOPS to burst can come in handy when there is a spike in traffic to your Splunk Heavy Forwarder or Indexer, for example. However, this system does have its downside that can actually cause the volume to stop completely!

The way Burst Balance works is on a ‘credit’ system. Every second, the volume earns 3 ‘credits’ for every GB of configured size. For example, if the volume is 100GB, you would earn 300 credits every second. These credits are then used for reads and writes – 1 credit for each read or write. When the volume isn’t being used heavily, it will store up these credits (up to a cap of 5.4 million), and when the volume gets a spike of traffic, the credits are then used to handle the spike.

However, if your volume is constantly busy, or sees a lot of frequent spikes, you may not earn credits at a quick enough rate to keep up with the number of reads and writes. Using our above example, if you had an average of more than 300 reads and writes per second, you wouldn’t earn credits fast enough to keep up. What happens when you run out of credits? The volume stops. Period. No reads or writes occur until you earn more credits (again 3/GB/sec). So, all you can do is wait. That can be a very bad thing, so it is something you need to avoid!

The good news is that AWS has tools that you can use to monitor and alert if your Burst Balance gets low. You can use CloudWatch to monitor the Burst Balance percentage, and also set up an alert if it gets low. To view the Burst Balance percentage, one way is to click on the Volume in the AWS console, then go to the Monitoring tab. One of the metrics is the Burst Balance Percentage, and you can click to view it in a bigger view:

As you can see in the above example, the Burst Balance has been at 100% for most of the last 24 hours, with the exception of around 9pm on 3/19, where it dropped to about 95% shortly, before returning to 100%. You can also set up an alarm to alert you if the Burst Balance percentage drops below a certain threshold.

So, what can you do if the Burst Balance is constantly dipping dangerously low (or running out!)? There are three main solutions:

You can switch to another volume type that doesn’t use the Burst Balance mechanism, such as the “io1” volume type. That volume type has guaranteed, consistent IOPS, so you don’t need to worry about “running out”. However, it is around twice the cost of the “gp2” volume type, so your storage costs could double.
Since the rate that you earn Burst Balance credits is based on the size of the volume (3 credits/GB/second), if you increase the size of the volume, you will earn credits faster. For example, if you increase the size of the volume by 20%, you will earn credits 20% faster. If you are coming up short, but only by a little, this may be the easiest/most cost-effective option, even if you don’t actually need the additional storage space.
You can modify your volume usage patterns to either reduce the number of reads and writes, or perhaps reduce the spikes and spread out the traffic more evenly throughout the day. That way, you have a better chance that you will have enough credits when needed. This may not be an easy thing to do, however.

In summary, AWS’s Burst Balance mechanism is a very creative and useful way to give you performance when you need it, without having to pay for it when you don’t. However, if you are not aware of how it works and how it could impact your environment, it can suddenly become a crippling issue. It pays to understand how this works, how to monitor and alert on it, and options to avoid the problem. This will help to ensure your Splunk environment stays running even in peak periods.

Want to learn more? Contact us today!

Archive for category: Splunk