
Create secure administrator credentials
When you install Splunk Enterprise, you must create a username and password for your administrator account. If you do not specify any arguments when you install the software, it prompts you to create a username and a password during the installation process.
If you do not create the password during installation, an unusable installation can occur. This can happen, for example, if you use the --no-prompt
Splunk CLI argument for starting Splunk Enterprise and also do not provide an administrator password in user-seed.conf
. In such a case, you must create the administrator credentials manually for the instance to be accessible.
If you upgrade from an older version of Splunk Enterprise, the installation uses the old administrator credentials.
Create admin credentials after starting Splunk Enterprise
If you installed Splunk Enterprise and did not create the administrator credentials, you can use one of the following methods to create the credentials.
Create admin credentials with user-seed.conf
This is currently the most secure method to create administrative credentials. Other methods can introduce security risks, mainly around access to command line history or process output.
- Edit the
$SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local/user-seed.conf
file as follows:[user_info] USERNAME = admin PASSWORD = <your password>
- Restart Splunk Enterprise.
Create admin credentials using REST
Administrators with access to the machine file system can create a user and enter a password using the splunkd rest --noauth
command.
This method is not secure because the password appears in plain text in the command line history unless you immediately delete the history after running the command.
You must restart Splunk Enterprise after using splunkd REST
commands.
$ splunk cmd splunkd rest --noauth POST /services/authentication/users "name=admin&password=<your password>&roles=admin"
Create admin credentials using the --seed-passwd or --gen-and-print-passwd CLI arguments
This method of creating the credentials is not secure because the password appears in the command line history, process output (ps aux
), and other items. Splunk Enterprise does not prompt you to create an administrator username in these cases, and instead uses the default of admin
.
- Create a password when you start Splunk Enterprise with the
--seed-passwd
argument:
splunk start --accept-license --answer-yes --no-prompt --seed-passwd <your password>
- Generate a random password and print the random password immediately:
splunk start --accept-license --answer-yes --no-prompt --gen-and-print-passwd
Create admin credentials for automated installations with the 'hash-passwd' CLI command
You can use this method in automated installations where you save and distribute user-seed.conf
to other instances. In most cases, you place user-seed.conf
in the $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local
directory on these instances.
This method is secure as long as you delete the command line history after completing the procedure.
- Create a hash from a plain-text password.
splunk hash-passwd <plaintext password>
- Copy the hash and place it into the
user-seed.conf
file. For example:$ splunk hash-passwd <your password> $6$hf3syG/qxy6REoBp...
You can then safely write the output of the hash-passwd command in
user-seed.conf
.For example:
[user_info] USERNAME = admin HASHED_PASSWORD = $6$hf3syG/qxy6REoBp...
- To validate a password and make sure it conforms to the password complexity requirements, you can use the
splunk validate-passwd
CLI command. For example:splunk validate-passwd <your password> cat passwd.txt | splunk validate-passwd - $ splunk validate-passwd weakpas ERROR: Password did not meet complexity requirements. Password must contain at least: * 8 total printable ASCII character(s).
Reset a lost password
If you lose or forget the admin password, you can reset it. You must have the ability to write to the underlying password file ($SPLUNK_HOME/etc/passwd
).
splunk cmd splunkd rest --noauth POST /services/admin/users/admin "password=<your password>"
You must restart Splunk Enterprise after making this change.
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This documentation applies to the following versions of Splunk® Enterprise: 7.2.0, 7.2.1, 7.2.2, 7.2.3, 7.2.4, 7.2.5, 7.2.6, 7.2.7, 7.2.8, 7.2.9, 7.2.10, 7.3.0, 7.3.1, 7.3.2, 7.3.3, 7.3.4, 7.3.5, 7.3.6, 7.3.7, 7.3.8, 7.3.9, 8.0.0, 8.0.1, 8.0.2, 8.0.3, 8.0.4, 8.0.5, 8.0.6, 8.0.7, 8.0.8, 8.0.9, 8.0.10, 8.1.0, 8.1.1, 8.1.2, 8.1.3, 8.1.4, 8.1.5, 8.1.6, 8.1.7, 8.1.8, 8.1.9, 8.1.10, 8.1.11, 8.1.12, 8.1.13, 8.1.14, 8.2.0, 8.2.1, 8.2.2, 8.2.3, 8.2.4, 8.2.5, 8.2.6, 8.2.7, 8.2.8, 8.2.9, 8.2.10, 8.2.11, 8.2.12, 9.0.0, 9.0.1, 9.0.2, 9.0.3, 9.0.4, 9.0.5, 9.0.6, 9.1.0, 9.1.1
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