Specify time zones of timestamps
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Specify time zones of timestamps
If you're indexing data from different time zones, you can use time zone offsets to ensure that they're correctly correlated when you search. You can configure time zones based on the host, source, or source type of an event.
Configure time zones in props.conf. For general information on editing props.conf for timestamps, see "Configure timestamp recognition".
How Splunk applies time zones
By default, Splunk applies time zones using these rules, in this order:
1. Splunk uses any time zone specified in raw event data (for example, PST, -0800).
2. Splunk uses the value of a TZ attribute set in props.conf, if the event matches the host, source, or source type specified by the stanza.
3. Splunk uses the time zone of the Splunk server that indexes the event.
Note: If you change the time zone setting in the system Splunk is running on, you must restart Splunk for it to pick up the change.
Specify time zones in props.conf
To configure time zone settings, edit props.conf in $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local/ or in your own custom application directory in $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps/. For information on configuration files in general, see "About configuration files" in the Admin manual.
Configure time zones by adding a TZ attribute to the appropriate stanza in props.conf. The Splunk TZ attribute recognizes zoneinfo TZ IDs. (See all the time zone TZ IDs in the zoneinfo (TZ) database.) Inside the stanza for a host, source, or source type, set the TZ attribute to the TZ ID for the desired time zone. This should be the time zone of the events coming from that host, source, or sourcetype.
Note that the time zone of the indexer is not configured in Splunk, but in the underlying operating system. As long as the time is set correctly on the host system of the indexer, the offsets to event time zones will be calculated correctly.
Examples
Events are coming to this indexer from New York City (in the US/Eastern time zone) and Mountain View, California (US/Pacific). To correctly handle the timestamps for these two sets of events, the props.conf for the indexer needs the time zone to be specified as US/Eastern and US/Pacific respectively.
The first example sets the time zone to US/Eastern for any events coming from hosts whose names match the regex nyc.*:
[host::nyc*] TZ = US/Eastern
The second example sets the time zone to US/Pacific for any events coming from sources in the path /mnt/ca/...:
[source::/mnt/ca/...] TZ = US/Pacific
zoneinfo (TZ) database
The zoneinfo database is a publicly maintained database of time zone values.
- UNIX versions of Splunk rely on a TZ database included with the UNIX distribution you're running on. Most UNIX distributions store the database in the directory:
/usr/share/zoneinfo. - Solaris versions of Splunk store TZ information in this directory:
/usr/share/lib/zoneinfo. - Windows versions of Splunk ship with a copy of the TZ database.
Refer to the zoneinfo (TZ) database for all permissible TZ values.
This documentation applies to the following versions of Splunk: 4.2 , 4.2.1 , 4.2.2 , 4.2.3 , 4.2.4 , 4.2.5 View the Article History for its revisions.