Configure forwarders to send SOAR data to your Splunk deployment

Starting in release 6.2.0, the embedded instance of Splunk Enterprise has been replaced with Universal Forwarders. These universal forwarders allow for better scaling, better performance, and reduced resource usage for getting your SOAR data into your Splunk deployment.

If your organization does not send your data to a Splunk Cloud Platform Deployment or Splunk Enterprise deployment, you do not need to configure forwarders.

Splunk SOAR (On-premises) includes the compatible, supported universal forwarder version. Do not upgrade to another universal forwarder version between Splunk SOAR releases.

After upgrading to Splunk SOAR (On-premises) release 6.2.0 or higher, you no longer require the user accounts phantomsearch and phantomdelete on your Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Cloud Platform deployment.

Support was added for new data types that you can send from 6.2.0 to Splunk Cloud Platform or your dedicated Splunk Enterprise deployment.

• Audit logs: Records of all activities in .
• Playbook run: Playbook performance metrics, including resource scoring data.
• SOAR logs: Information about , based on app logs.
• Splunk Addon For Linux Logs: System logs from for use with Splunk IT Service Intelligence.

Configure data forwarding

This section applies if you are forwarding data from to either an external instance of Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Cloud Platform.

You must complete these steps to ensure your data can be forwarded.

Configure a Universal Forwarder Credentials Package

If your organization forwards data to a Splunk Cloud Platform deployment, you need to use a Universal Forwarder Credentials Package to configure your forwarders.

To configure your forwarders with with a Universal Forwarder Credentials Package, follow these steps:

1. In your Splunk Cloud Platform deployment, get a Universal Forwarder Credentials Package.
   For details, see Install and configure the Splunk Cloud Platform universal forwarder credentials package in the Splunk Universal Forwarder documentation.
1. In Splunk Cloud Platform, select Apps, then Universal Forwarder.
2. Select Download Universal Forwarder Credentials.
2. Conditional: If your Splunk Cloud Platform deployment is in a restricted access category, you must request that TCP port 9997 be opened on your Splunk Cloud Platform.
3. In , upload the credentials package from Step 1.
1. From the Home menu, select Administration, then Administration Settings. Then select Forwarder Settings.
2. Click the +Install Credentials Package button.
3. Drag and drop, or click the large box to select and upload the Splunk Universal Forwarder Credentials Package associated with your Splunk Cloud Platform instance.
4. In the Name field, type a name for your forwarder group (do not use the name splunk). This name is displayed on the Forwarder Settings page.
5. Select all of the data types you want to forward to your Splunk Cloud Platform deployment. You must select at least one data type to forward.
4. Make sure the Enabled slider button is in the on position.
5. Click Save.

Update a Universal Forwarder Credentials Package

You may need to update the credentials package associated with your forwarder group. For example, the certificates in the package may need to be refreshed due to an approaching expiration date.

First, obtain an updated Universal Forwarder Credentials Package.

1. In your Splunk Cloud Platform deployment, get a Universal Forwarder Credentials Package.
   For details, see Install and configure the Splunk Cloud Platform universal forwarder credentials package in the Splunk Universal Forwarder documentation.
2. In Splunk Cloud Platform, select Apps, then Universal Forwarder.
3. Click Download Universal Forwarder Credentials.

You can only use a Universal Forwarder Credentials Package that matches the existing stack for your forwarder group.

Once you have obtained an updated Universal Forwarder Credentials Package, apply it to your forwarder group.

1. From the Home menu, select Administration, then Administration Settings. Then select Forwarder Settings.
2. Locate the forwarder group whose credential package you want to update.
3. Click the edit icon at the right-hand edge of the table entry for the forwarder group.
4. Click the Update Credentials Package button.
5. Drag and drop, or click the large box to select and upload the Splunk Universal Forwarder Credentials Package associated with your Splunk Cloud Platform instance.
6. Click Save.

Configure forwarding to a Splunk Enterprise deployment

If your organization forwards data to a Splunk Enterprise deployment, you need to configure your forwarders. To configure data forwarding follow these steps:

1. From the Home menu, select Administration, then Administration Settings. Then select Forwarder Settings.
2. Select +New Group.
3. In the Add a new forwarder group dialog do the following:
   1. In the Name field, type a name for your forwarder group. This name is displayed on the Forwarder Settings page.
   2. Conditional: If you use a TCP token to authenticate to your Splunk Enterprise deployment, add it to the Token field.
   3. In the Indexers field, add the address for your indexer.Click the Add Another if you have more indexers to add. You can remove an indexer from the list by using the - button at the end of the indexer's address field.
   4. Select the Data types you want to ingest into Splunk Cloud Platform or Splunk Enterprise.
4. Make sure the Enabled slider button is in the on position.
5. Click Save.

After you complete these steps, data will begin to stream from to your Splunk Enterprise deployment.

Configure transport layer security between your Splunk SOAR (On-premises) universal forwarder and the receiving indexer

You can now use transport layer security (TLS) certificates to secure connections between 's forwarders and the receiving indexers.

To add a TLS certificate, you will need a valid TLS certificate in your certificate bundle.

To use a certificate bundle it must include;

• the client certificate
• the matching private key
• the CA certificate that was used to sign the client certificate
• (Conditional) If the private key in your certificate bundle is encrypted, you will need the client certificate password.

For more information on preparing your TLS certificates for use with the Splunk platform, see How to prepare TLS certificates for use with the Splunk platform in Securing Splunk Enterprise.

To add a TLS certificate for your Universal Forwarder, or to edit the TLS configuration, do the following steps:

1. From the Home menu, select Administration, Administration Settings, Forwarder Settings.
2. On the Forwarder Settings page, click the edit icon on the right-hand end of the forwarder group's entry.
3. Click the Certificate configuration tab.
4. Add your client certificate bundle either by dragging and dropping it onto the box provided, or by clicking the box and navigating to the bundle on your filesystem.
   1. (Conditional) If your Client certificate bundle includes an encrypted private key, type your client certificate password in the Client certificate password box.
5. Add your TLS certificate by dragging and dropping the certificate onto the box provided, or by clicking the box and navigating to the certificate on your filesystem.
6. (Optional) Select options as needed:
   1. Verify server certificate
   2. Verify server name
   3. Use client SSL compression
7. (Optional) If you use common names or Subject Alt names for your servers, add them as comma-separated lists to the Allowed common names or Allowed Subject Alt names fields.
8. Click Save.

When a Universal Forwarder is configured with TLS certificates, the Forwarder Settings page displays the certificate expiration date in the Expiry column. Expired certificates have their dates and times displayed in red text.

Configure Splunk SOAR (On-premises) to forward information to ElasticSearch

When you configure to use an external instance of Elasticsearch, a copy of all indexed and searchable data is sent to the Elasticsearch instance.

Verify the following requirements before configuring the external Elasticsearch instance:

• If you are using SSL to secure your connection to the Elasticsearch instance, the SSL certificate is imported to the Splunk Phantom certificate store.
• You know the host name and port for the Elasticsearch instance.
• You know the username and password of an Elasticsearch user account, or the client certificate and client key.

Perform the following tasks to connect to an external Elasticsearch instance:

1. From the main menu in , select Administration.
2. Select Administration Settings.
3. Select Forwarder Settings.
4. Click the button labeled +Configure Elastic Search.
5. On the Configure Elastic Search dialog, add the settings for your Elasticsearch instance:
   1. In the Host field, type the hostname and port for your Elasticsearch instance.
   2. In the Username field, type the username required to log in to your Elasticsearch instance.
   3. In the Password field, type the password required to log in to your Elasticsearch instance.
6. Conditional: Select the Use SSL check box to enable SSL.
7. Conditional: If your Elasticsearch instance is version 6 or higher, select the Use one index per section check box.
8. Conditional: If you are using certificate-based authentication, select the Client Authentication check box.
   1. Type the name of the client certificate in the Client Certificate field. This certificate is often a file with the .pem extension.
   2. Type the name of the to client key in the Client Key field. This key is often a file with the .key extension.
9. Data types for Elasticsearch are already configured for you.
10. When you are finished, click the button labeled Save.

If you want to use a client certificate to connect to your Elasticsearch instance, provide the paths on the Splunk SOAR instance's operating system to the public and private keys. The private key, often a file with the .pem extension, is the Client Certificate. The public key, often a file with the .key extension, is the Client Key. Both files must be added to the Splunk SOAR (On-premises) Certificate store. See Splunk SOAR (On-premises) certificate store overview for more information on the Certificate Store.

Reindexing

You can reindex all of your data.

Reindexing will send all your SOAR data to your Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Cloud Platform deployment again, which can result in duplicated data. To prevent duplicates, make sure to delete existing objects from all forwarder groups before reindexing. See How indexing works in the Splunk Enterprise Managing Indexers and Clusters of Indexers manual.

To reindex your data, do these steps:

1. From the Home menu, select Administration, Administration Settings, Forwarder Settings.
2. From the Forwarder Settings screen, select the Reindex tab.
3. Use the dropdown menu to select the data type you would like to reindex.
4. (Optional) Set a start time from which to reindex data.
5. (Optional) Set an end time, after which data should not be reindexed.
6. Click Reindex.

Data types and corresponding indexes

This table shows the connection between the forwarded Data type and the index it corresponds to in Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Cloud Platform.

Splunk SOAR Data type	Index in Splunk Enterprise/Splunk Cloud Platform
Action run	phantom_action_run
App	phantom_app
App run	phantom_app_run
Artifact	phantom_artifact
Asset	phantom_asset
Audit log	_audit
Container	phantom_container
Container attachment	phantom_container_attachment
Container comment	phantom_container_comment
Custom function	phantom_custom_function
Custom list	phantom_decided_list
Note	phantom_note
Playbook	phantom_playbook
Playbook run	phantom_playbook_run You must create this index before forwarding data.
SOAR logs	splunk_app_soar
Splunk addon for Linux logs	os

See Also

For more information about getting data into Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Cloud Platform see these additional resources.

• What data can I index? in the Splunk Enterprise Getting Data In manual.
• Use forwarders to get data into Splunk Cloud Platform in the Splunk Enterprise Getting Data In manual.
• Use forwarders to get data into Splunk Enterprise in the Splunk Enterprise Getting Data In manual.
• Set up the universal forwarder using Splunk SOAR version 6.2.0 and later in the Install and Configure Splunk App for SOAR manual.
• How to prepare TLS certificates for use with the Splunk platform in the Securing Splunk Enterprise manual.