Disable unnecessary Splunk Enterprise components

In an effort to reduce potential attack surfaces in your Splunk Enterprise deployment, you can disable certain components of Splunk Enterprise if you don't need to use them.

Disable unnecessary Splunk Enterprise components in single-server Splunk Enterprise deployments

• Where possible, do not run Splunk Web on forwarders of any kind.
• Where possible, disable any configuration that lets forwarders receive data on TCP or UDP network ports or from other Splunk Enterprise instances

Disable unnecessary Splunk Enterprise components in multiserver Splunk Enterprise deployments

• Where possible, disable any configuration that lets Search heads receive data on TCP or UDP network ports or from other Splunk Enterprise instances
• If users do not log in to Splunk Web on indexers in a distributed environment, disable Splunk Web on those indexers.

Disable Splunk Web

The fastest way to disable Splunk Web on an instance that is capable of running it is to use Splunk Web to turn Splunk Web off.

1. From the system bar, choose Settings > Server settings.
2. Select General settings.
3. In the Splunk Web section, in the Run Splunk Web radio button, Select No.
4. Select Save.
5. Restart the Splunk Enterprise instance.

You can also deactivate Splunk Web by editing the web.conf configuration file and giving the startwebserver a value of 0 or false. You must have administrative access to the machine where you want to disable Splunk Web, and familiarity with command line tools.

1. On the Splunk Enterprise instance where you want to disable Splunk Web, open a shell prompt or terminal window.
2. From this prompt, go to the $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local directory.
3. Open the web.conf file for editing. You might need to create this file.
4. Add the following line to the [settings] stanza within the web.conf file
   

   startwebserver = 0

5. Save the web.conf file and close it.
6. Restart the Splunk Enterprise instance.