Enable a receiver for Splunk Enterprise

A receiver is a Splunk software instance that is configured to listen on a specific port for incoming communications from a forwarder. Usually, the receiver is an indexer or a cluster of indexers.

For Splunk Enterprise forwarder and indexer compatibility see Compatibility between forwarders and Splunk Enterprise indexers in the Splunk Products Version Compatibility Matrix manual.

Sometimes the receiver is another forwarder, which is called an intermediate forwarder. To learn more about how intermediate forwarders work, see Configure an intermediate forwarder.

A Splunk Cloud receiving port is configured and enabled by default. Instead, you need credentials to access it. See Install and configure The Splunk Cloud universal forwarder credentials package.

Configure a receiver using Splunk Web

Use Splunk Web to configure a receiver:

1. Log into Splunk Web as a user with the admin role.
2. In Splunk Web, go to Settings > Forwarding and receiving.
3. Select "Configure receiving."
4. Verify if there are existing receiver ports open. You cannot create a duplicate receiver port. The conventional receiver port configured on indexers is port 9997.
5. Optionally select "New Receiving Port."
6. Add a port number and save.

Splunk Web is only available with Splunk Enterprise, not the universal forwarder.

Configure a receiver using the command line

Use the command line interface (CLI) to configure a receiver:

1. Open a shell prompt
2. Change the path to $SPLUNK_HOME/bin
3. Type: splunk enable listen <port> -auth <username>:<password> .
4. Restart Splunk software for the changes to take effect.

*nix example	Windows example
./splunk enable listen 9997 -auth admin:password	splunk enable listen 9997 -auth admin:password

Configure a receiver using a configuration file

Configure a receiver using the inputs.conf file:

1. Open a shell prompt
2. Change the path to $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local.
3. Edit the inputs.conf file.
4. Create a [splunktcp] stanza and define the receiving port. Example:

   [splunktcp://9997]
   disabled = 0
   

5. Save the file.
6. Restart Splunk software for the changes to take effect.