Set up your Splunk search head instance

After you have installed Splunk, you'll need to configure a search head to support the providers and virtual indexes you will add later.

See "Set up a provider and virtual index" for more information about configuring providers and virtual indexes.

1. Keep a copy of the .tgz version of Splunk on your search head (you need this package even after installing it on the search head).

During the first virtual index search, Splunk copies this package to HDFS then extracts it into all TaskTracker nodes that participate in the search. The extracted package is used to process search results in Hadoop.

If you installed Splunk using a download other than the .tgz, you can download a copy of the Splunk_package.tgz file to install on your search head.

2. If you have not done so already, install Java on the Splunk search head. You'll need this to access the Hadoop cluster.

3. Install the Hadoop client libraries on your search head. Keep in mind that the client libraries must be the same version as your Hadoop cluster. For instructions on how to download and install Hadoop Client libraries, as well the JDK, see Install Hadoop CLI in the Hadoop Connect manual.