Configure event timestamps

You can control how the Splunk platform handles timestamps in both Splunk Cloud Platform and Splunk Enterprise.

Examine this event example:

172.26.34.223 - - [01/Jul/2017:12:05:27 -0700] "GET /trade/app?action=logout HTTP/1.1" 200 2953

The time information in the event, [01/Jul/2017:12:05:27 -0700], is a timestamp.

The Splunk platform uses timestamps to correlate events by time, create the histogram in Splunk Web, and set time ranges for searches. Most events contain timestamps, and in cases where an event doesn't have timestamp information, the Splunk platform attempts to assign a timestamp value to the event at index time.

In most cases, the Splunk platform extracts timestamps correctly, but there are situations where you might need to configure timestamp handling yourself. For example, when dealing with distributed deployments, you might need to reconfigure timestamp recognition and formatting.

See the Configure timestamps chapter of this manual for specific instructions on how to configure timestamps.