Configure the search head with the CLI

Read this first

Before reading this topic, see:

• "Configure and manage the indexer cluster with the CLI". This topic explains the basics of indexer cluster configuration with the CLI. It provides details on issues that are common to all cluster node types.

Enable a search head

The following example shows the basic settings that you typically configure when enabling a search head. The configuration attributes correspond to fields on the Enable clustering page of Splunk Web.

To enable an instance as a search head, set mode to "searchhead". You also need to specify the manager_uri and the cluster-wide security key (secret):

splunk edit cluster-config -mode searchhead -manager_uri https://10.160.31.200:8089 -secret your_key

splunk restart

The -secret flag modifies the pass4SymmKey setting in the [clustering] stanza of server.conf.

Edit the search head settings

You can also use the CLI to edit the configuration later.

Important: When you first enable a search head, you use the splunk edit cluster-config command. To change the search head configuration, you must instead use the splunk edit cluster-manager command.

For example, to change the security key (secret), use this command:

splunk edit cluster-manager https://10.160.31.200:8089  -secret newsecret123

Important: The splunk edit cluster-manager command always takes the current manager node URI:port value as its initial parameter. For example, this command connects the search head to a different manager node by setting a new value for the -manager_uri parameter, but it provides the value for the old manager node as its initial parameter:

splunk edit cluster-manager https://10.160.31.200:8089  -manager_uri https://10.160.31.55:8089

Refer to the CLI clustering help, along with the server.conf specification file, for the list of configurable settings.