Configure limits using Splunk Web

Splunk Cloud Platform supports self-service configuration of select limits.conf settings, which can be useful for optimizing search performance. You can use the Configure limits page in Splunk Web to view and edit limits.conf settings, without assistance from Splunk Support.

Alternatively, you can configure limits.conf settings programmatically using the Admin Config Service (ACS) API. For more information, see Manage limits.conf configurations in Splunk Cloud Platform in the Admin Config Service Manual.

Requirements

To configure limits.conf using Splunk Web:

• You must have the sc_admin role.
• You must have the edit_limits_conf capability. The sc_admin role includes this capability by default.
• You must have Splunk Cloud Platform version 9.0.2209.
• Your Splunk Cloud Platform deployment must be on Victoria Experience. See Determine your Splunk Cloud Platform Experience.
• Automatic UI updates and token authentication must be enabled for your deployment.
• Your deployment must have one or more separate search heads or a search head cluster.

The Configure limits UI does not currently support AWS GovCloud or FedRAMP environments.

Changing limits.conf settings can affect the performance of your Splunk Cloud Platform deployment.

View and edit limits.conf settings

This section shows you how to view and edit select limits.conf settings using Splunk Web.

The table shows editable limits.conf settings by stanza, with minimum, maximum, and default values:

Stanza	Setting	Description	Values (min/max/default)
[join]	subsearch_maxout	The maximum number of result rows to output from subsearch to join against.	"minValue": 0 "maxValue": 100000 "defaultValue": 50000
	subsearch_maxtime	Maximum search time, in seconds, before auto-finalization of subsearch.	"minValue": 0 "maxValue": 120 "defaultValue": 60
[kv]	maxchars	Truncate _raw to this size and then do auto KV. A value of 0 means that no truncation occurs.	"minValue": 1 "maxValue": 20480 "defaultValue": 10240
	limit	The maximum number of fields that an automatic key-value field extraction (auto kv) can generate at search time.	"minValue": 1 "maxValue": 200 "defaultValue": 100
	maxcols	When non-zero, the point at which kv stops creating new fields.	"minValue": 256 "maxValue": 2048 "defaultValue": 512
[subsearch]	maxout	Maximum number of results to return from a subsearch.	"minValue": 0 "maxValue": 10400 "defaultValue": 10000
	maxtime	Maximum number of seconds to run a subsearch before finalizing	"minValue": 0 "maxValue": 120 "defaultValue": 60

All editable limits.conf settings are reloadable.

For more detailed information on each of the supported limits.conf settings, see Limits.conf in the Splunk Enterprise Admin Manual.

Enable automatic UI updates and token authentication

Before you can access and use the Configure limits page in Splunk Web, you must enable automatic UI updates and token authentication for your deployment.

To enable automatic UI updates:

1. In Splunk Web, select Settings > Automatic UI updates.
2. Set the switch to enable automatic UI updates.
3. Select Save.

After you enable automatic UI updates the Configure Limits menu option appears under Settings > Server settings.

To enable token authentication:

1. In Splunk Web, select Settings > Tokens > Token Settings.
2. Set the Token Authentication switch to Enabled.

Configure limits.conf settings

To view, edit, or reset limits.conf settings using Splunk Web:

1. Select Settings > Server settings.
2. If token authentication is not enabled, select Go to tokens page and enable token authentication.
3. Edit one or more of the available limits.conf settings values.
4. Select Save. A successful request message means that your edits have been submitted successfully, but setting changes can still take time to propagate.