Configure users and roles

Splunk Enterprise Security uses the access control system integrated with the Splunk platform. The Splunk platform authorization allows you to add users, assign users to roles, and assign those roles custom capabilities to provide granular access control for your organization.

Authentication

The Splunk platform supports several methods of user authentication:

• The Splunk platform built-in user authentication system.
• User authentication using LDAP and Active Directory. For more information, see Set up user authentication with LDAP.
• Scripted authentication API: Use scripted authentication to tie authentication requests to an external authentication system, such as RADIUS or PAM. For more information, see Set up user authentication with external systems.
• Single Sign-on: For more information, see About Splunk single sign-on.
• Splunk Cloud supports SAML authentication. For more information see Configure single sign-on (SSO) to Splunk Cloud using SAML in the Splunk Cloud User manual.

Important: The Splunk platform built-in user authentication takes precedence over any configured external authentication.

Configure user roles

Splunk Enterprise Security adds three new roles in addition to the default roles provided by the Splunk platform. The new roles allow a splunk administrator to assign access to specific functions in ES based on the users access requirements. The Splunk platform administrator will assign groups of users to the roles that best fit the tasks the users will perform and manage within Enterprise Security. There are three categories of users:

• Security Director: Reviews the Security Posture, Protection Centers, and Audit dashboards in order to understand current Security Posture of the organization. A security director will not configure the product or manage incidents.

• Security Analyst: Uses the Security Posture and Incident Review dashboards to manage and investigate Security Incidents. Security Analysts are also responsible for reviewing the Protection Centers and providing direction on what constitutes a security incident. They will also define the thresholds used by correlation searches and dashboards. A Security Analyst needs to be able to edit correlation searches and create suppressions.

• Solution Administrator: Installs and maintains Splunk platform installations and Splunk Apps. This user is responsible for configuring workflows, on-boarding new data sources, and tuning and troubleshooting the application.

Each user type requires different levels of access to perform their assigned functions. The table below shows which roles in Enterprise Security are suitable match for a user category.

Role assignment	Security Director	Security Analyst	Solution Administrator
ess_user
ess_analyst
admin

Splunk Enterprise Security defines 3 custom roles. Two of the roles are for user assignment, and the ess_admin role is inherited by the Splunk platform admin role.

Enterprise Security role	Inherits from role	Added capabilities	Accepts user assignment
ess_user	user	real time search	Yes. Replaces the user role for ES users.
ess_analyst	user, ess_user, power	inherits ess_user and adds: create, edit, and own notable events and perform all transitions	Yes. Replaces the power role for ES users.
ess_admin	user, ess_user, power, ess_analyst	inherits ess_analyst and adds: edit correlation searches and edit review statuses	No You must use a Splunk platform admin role to administer an Enterprise Security installation.

The Splunk platform admin role inherits all unique ES capabilities. In a Splunk Cloud deployment, the Splunk platform admin role is named sc_admin. Use the admin or sc_admin role to administer an Enterprise Security installation.

Splunk platform role	Inherits from role	Added capabilities	Accepts user assignment
admin	user, ess_user, power, ess_analyst, ess_admin	All	Yes.
sc_admin	user, ess_user, power, ess_analyst, ess_admin	All	Yes.

Role inheritance

All role inheritance is preconfigured in Enterprise Security. If the capabilities of any role are changed, other inheriting roles will receive the changes. For more information about roles, see Add and edit roles and Securing Splunk in the Securing Splunk Enterprise Manual.

Adding capabilities to a role

Enterprise Security implements custom features on the Splunk platform. To control access to those features, additional capabilities are assigned to the Enterprise Security defined roles. Use the Permissions page in Enterprise Security to review and change the capabilities assigned to a role.

1. On the Enterprise Security menu bar, open Configure > General
2. Select Permissions.
3. Find the role you want to update.
4. Find the ES Component you want to add.
5. Enable the component for the role.
6. Save.

List of capabilities in ES

ES Feature	Capability	Set in Permissions UI
Create New Notable Events	edit_tcp edit_notable_events	Yes
Edit Correlation Searches	edit_correlationsearches schedule_search	Yes
Edit ES Navigation	edit_es_navigation	Yes
Edit Identity Lookup Configuration	edit_identitylookup	Yes
Edit Incident Review	edit_log_review_settings	Yes
Edit Lookups	edit_lookups	Yes
Edit Notable Event Statuses	edit_tcp edit_notable_events transition_reviewstatus-X to Y	Yes
Edit Notable Event Suppressions	edit_suppressions	Yes
Edit Notable Events	edit_notable_events edit_tcp	Yes
Edit Per Panel Filters	edit_per_panel_filters	Yes
Edit Threat Intelligence	edit_modinput_threatlist	Yes
Edit Timelines	edit_timelines	Yes
Manage Configurations	edit_managed_configurations	Yes
Own Notable Events	can_own_notable_events	Yes
Search Driven Lookups	edit_managed_configurations schedule_search	Yes
Credential Manager	admin_all_objects	No
Export content	edit_correlationsearches	Yes. Use Edit Correlation Searches.

Adjust the concurrent searches for a role

Splunk Enterprise defines a limit on concurrently running searches for the user and power roles by default. After you install Enterprise Security, review the limits for roles and change as desired. On the Enterprise Security menu bar, open to Configure > General and select General Settings.

Item	Description
Search Disk Quota (admin)	The maximum disk space (MB) a user assigned the admin role can use to store search job results.
Search Jobs Quota (admin)	The maximum number of concurrent searches for users assigned the admin role.
Search Jobs Quota (power)	The maximum number of concurrent searches for users assigned the power role.

To change the limits for roles other then admin and power, update the default search quota by editing the authorize.conf file. For an example, see the authorize.conf.example in the Splunk Enterprise Admin manual.

Configure the roles to search multiple indexes

Data sources being ingested by Splunk Enterprise are stored in multiple indexes. Distributing data into multiple indexes allow for role based access control and varying retention policies for data sources.

Splunk configures all roles to search only in the main index by default. To enable the searching of multiple indexes, manually assign any indexes that contain relevant security data to each ES role. To access the Role management page, on the Splunk Enterprise menu bar open Settings > Access Controls and select Roles. If you do not update the roles with the correct indexes, searches and other knowledge objects that rely on data from unassigned indexes will not update and display results.

Note: When adding indexes to a role, do not include summary indexes as this can cause a search and summary index loop.

For more information on the reasons for multiple indexes, see Why have multiple indexes? in the Managing Indexers and Clusters of Indexers manual.