Start Splunk for the first time

Start Splunk for the first time

Important: Before you begin using your new Splunk upgrade or installation, you should take a few moments to make sure that Splunk and your data are secure. For more information, read "Hardening Standards" in the Securing Splunk Manual.

To start Splunk:

On Windows

You can start Splunk on Windows using either the command line, or the Windows Services Manager. Using the command line offers more options, described later in this section. In a cmd window, go to C:\Program Files\Splunk\bin and type:

splunk start

(For Windows users: in subsequent examples and information, replace $SPLUNK_HOME with C:\Program Files\Splunk if you have installed Splunk in the default location. You can also add %SPLUNK_HOME% as a system-wide environment variable by using the System Properties dialog's Advanced tab.)

On UNIX

Use the Splunk command-line interface (CLI):

$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk start

Splunk then displays the license agreement and prompts you to accept before the startup sequence continues.

Other start options

To accept the license automatically when you start Splunk for the first time, add the accept-license option to the start command:

$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk start --accept-license

The startup sequence displays:

Checking prerequisites...
Checking http port [8000]: open
Checking mgmt port [8089]: open
Verifying configuration.  This may take a while...
Finished verifying configuration.
Checking index directory...
Verifying databases...
Verified databases: _audit, _blocksignature, _internal, _thefishbucket, history, main, sampledata, splunklogger, summary
Checking index files
All index checks passed.
All preliminary checks passed.
Starting splunkd...
Starting splunkweb...
Splunk Server started. 
The Splunk web interface is at http://<hostname>:8000 

Note: If the default ports are already in use (or are otherwise not available), Splunk will offer to use the next available port. You can either accept this option or specify a port for Splunk to use.

There are two other start options: no-prompt and answer-yes:

• If you run $SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk start --no-prompt, Splunk proceeds with startup until it requires you to answer a question. Then, it displays the question, why it is quitting, and quits.
• If you run SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk start --answer-yes, Splunk proceeds with startup and automatically answers "yes" to all yes/no questions. Splunk displays the question and answer as it continues.

If you run start with all three options in one line, for example:

$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk start --answer-yes --no-prompt --accept-license

• Splunk does not ask you to accept the license.
• Splunk answers yes to any yes/no question.
• Splunk quits when it encounters a non-yes/no question.

Start and disable individual processes

You can start and stop individual Splunk processes by adding the process as an object to the start command. The objects include:

• splunkd, the Splunk server daemon.
• splunkweb, Splunk's Web interface process.

For example, to start only splunkd:

$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk start splunkd

To disable splunkweb:

$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk disable webserver

For more information about start, refer to the CLI help page:

$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk help start

Launch Splunk Web

Navigate to:

http://mysplunkhost:8000

Use whatever host and port you chose during installation.

The first time you log in to Splunk Enterprise, the default login details are:
Username - admin
Password - changeme

Splunk Free does not have access controls.

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