Configure and manage the indexer cluster with the CLI

You can use the CLI to perform a wide set of indexer cluster activities, including:

• Configuring cluster nodes
• Viewing cluster information
• Managing the cluster

Some clustering commands are available only for a specific node type, such as the manager node.

This topic discusses issues that are common to all node types.

Configure cluster nodes

You can use the CLI to enable any of the cluster node types or to change their configurations later:

• To enable or edit a manager node, see "Configure the manager node with the CLI".

• To enable or edit a peer node, see "Configure peer nodes with the CLI".

• To enable or edit a search head, see "Configure the search head with the CLI".

For details on specific command-line options, read "Configure the indexer cluster with server.conf".

For multisite cluster configurations, also read "Configure multisite indexer clusters with the CLI".

Specify a security key

You specify a security key for the cluster by appending the -secret flag when you enable each cluster node. For example, you specify it when configuring a peer node:

splunk edit cluster-config -mode peer -manager_uri https://10.160.31.200:8089 -replication_port 9887 -secret your_key

The security key authenticates communication between the manager node and the peers and search heads. The key is required and must be the same across all cluster nodes.

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

View cluster information

There are a number of splunk list commands that return different types of cluster information. For example, to get detailed information on each peer in the cluster, run this command on the manager node:

splunk list cluster-peers

To get information on the cluster configuration, run this command from any node:

splunk list cluster-config

See the CLI clustering help for the full set of splunk list commands.

Manage the cluster

You can also use the CLI to perform a number of different actions on the cluster. Those actions are described in their own topics:

• Use the splunk offline command to take a peer offline.
• Use the splunk apply cluster-bundle command to update common peer configurations.
• Use the splunk rolling-restart cluster-peers command to restart all the cluster peers.
• Use the splunk enable maintenance-mode command to enable maintenance mode.
• Use the splunk remove excess-buckets command to remove excess bucket copies.
• Configure multi-cluster search.

Get help on the CLI commands

The CLI provides online help for its commands. For general help on the full set of clustering commands, go to $SPLUNKHOME/bin and type:

splunk help cluster

For help on specific commands, specify the command name. For example:

splunk help list cluster-config

For general information on the CLI, read the "Administer Splunk Enterprise with the command line interface (CLI)" chapter in the Admin Manual, or type:

splunk help