Turn on Splunk platform field filters

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READ THIS FIRST: Should you deploy field filters in your organization?

Field filters are a powerful tool that can help many organizations protect their sensitive fields from prying eyes, but it might not be a good fit for everyone. If your organization runs Splunk Enterprise Security or if your users rely heavily on commands that field filters restricts by default (mpreview, mstats, tstats, typeahead, and walklex), do not use field filters in production until you have thoroughly planned how you will work around these restricted commands. See READ THIS: Restricted commands do not work in searches on indexes that have field filters.

How to turn on field filters

By default, field filters are turned off. Before you can use field filters to protect sensitive data in your organization, you must turn on field filters in the following .conf files:

• limits.conf
• web-features.conf files.

Turning on field filters in both files lets you use Splunk Web or Splunk platform REST API endpoints to create and manage field filters.

Splunk Cloud Platform

To turn on field filters in your environment, request help from Splunk Support. If you have a support contract, file a new case using the Splunk Support Portal at Support and Services. Otherwise, contact Splunk Customer Support.

Splunk Enterprise

To turn on field filters in your environment, follow these steps.

Prerequisites

• Have the permissions to edit configuration files. Only users with file system access, such as system administrators, can edit configuration files.
• Know how to edit configuration files. Review the steps in How to edit a configuration file in the Splunk Enterprise Admin Manual.
• Decide which directory to store configuration file changes in. There can be configuration files with the same name in your default, local, and app directories. See Where you can place (or find) your modified configuration files in the Splunk Enterprise Admin Manual.

Never change or copy the configuration files in the default directory. The files in the default directory must remain intact and in their original location. Make changes to the files in the local directory.

Steps

1. Open or create a local limits.conf file at $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local.
2. In the [search] stanza, add the line field_filters=true.
   
3. Open or create a local web-features.conf file at $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local.
4. In the [feature:field_filters] stanza, add the line enable_field_filters_ui=true.
5. Restart Splunk Enterprise, so the changes to the configuration files take effect.
6. If you're using field filters in a distributed search deployment, you must set field_filters=true in the limits.conf file and enable_field_filters_ui=true in the web-features.conf file on all search heads and indexers.

See also

Protect PII, PHI, and other sensitive data with field filters

Turn off Splunk platform field filters