Docs » Get started with the Splunk Distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector » Install and deploy the Collector » Install the Collector for Windows with the installer script

Install the Collector for Windows with the installer script 🔗

The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector for Windows is a package that provides integrated collection and forwarding for all data types. Install the package using one of these methods:

Alternatively, you can manually install the Collector. To learn how, see Install the Collector for Windows manually.

Prerequisites 🔗

The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector for Windows has the following requirements depending on the installation method:

Install method

Supported versions (64-bit)

Installer script

Windows 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022

Windows installer (MSI)

Windows 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022

Ansible

Windows 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022

Chef

Windows 2019, 2022

Nomad

Windows 2012, 2016, 2019

Puppet

Windows 2012, 2016, 2019

Docker

Windows 2019, 2022

Installer script 🔗

The installer script is available for Windows 64-bit environments, and deploys and configures the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector for Windows and Fluentd (using the td-agent).

To install the package using the installer script, follow these steps:

  1. Ensure that you have Administrator access on your host.

  2. Run the following PowerShell command on your host, replacing the following variables for your environment:

& {Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; $script = ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://dl.signalfx.com/splunk-otel-collector.ps1')); $params = @{access_token = "SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN"; realm = "SPLUNK_REALM"}; Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock ([scriptblock]::Create(". {$script} $(&{$args} @params)"))}

Note

If needed, activate TLS in PowerShell using the following command:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

Configure memory allocation 🔗

To configure memory allocation, use the memory parameter.

By default, the Collector is configured to use 512 MB (500 x 2^20 bytes) of memory. To increase this setting to allocate more memory, replace SPLUNK_MEMORY_TOTAL_MIB with the desired integer value.

& {Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; $script = ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://dl.signalfx.com/splunk-otel-collector.ps1')); $params = @{access_token = "SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN"; realm = "SPLUNK_REALM"; memory = "SPLUNK_MEMORY_TOTAL_MIB"}; Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock ([scriptblock]::Create(". {$script} $(&{$args} @params)"))}

Read more about Collector sizing in Sizing and scaling.

Configure proxy settings 🔗

If you need to use a proxy, set one of the following environment variables according to your needs:

  • HTTP_PROXY: Address of the proxy for HTTP request. Port is optional.

  • HTTPS_PROXY: Address of the proxy for HTTPS request. Port is optional.

  • NO_PROXY: If you use a proxy, sets addresses that don’t use the proxy.

Restart the Collector after adding these environment variables to your configuration.

Note

For more information on proxy settings, see Configure proxy settings.

Configure fluentd for log collection 🔗

By default, the installation configures the fluentd service to forward log events with the @SPLUNK label and send these events to the HEC ingest endpoint determined by the realm = "<SPLUNK_REALM>" option. For example, https://ingest.<SPLUNK_REALM>.signalfx.com/v1/log.

To configure the package to send log events to a custom HTTP Event Collector (HEC) endpoint URL with a token different than <SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN>, you can specify the following parameters for the installer script:

  • hec_url = "<SPLUNK_HEC_URL>"

  • hec_token = "<SPLUNK_HEC_TOKEN>"

For example (replace the <SPLUNK...> values in the command for your configuration):

& {Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; $script = ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://dl.signalfx.com/splunk-otel-collector.ps1')); $params = @{access_token = "<SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN>"; realm = "<SPLUNK_REALM>"; hec_url = "<SPLUNK_HEC_URL>"; hec_token = "<SPLUNK_HEC_TOKEN>"}; Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock ([scriptblock]::Create(". {$script} $(&{$args} @params)"))}

The installation creates the main fluentd configuration file <drive>\opt\td-agent\etc\td-agent\td-agent.conf, where <drive> is the drive letter for the fluentd installation directory.

You can add custom fluentd source configuration files to the <drive>\opt\td-agent\etc\td-agent\conf.d directory after installation.

Note the following:

  • In this directory, fluentd includes all files with the .conf extension.

  • By default, fluentd collects from the Windows Event Log. See <drive>\opt\td-agent\etc\td-agent\conf.d\eventlog.conf for the default configuration.

After any configuration modification, apply the changes by restarting the system or running the following PowerShell commands:

Stop-Service fluentdwinsvc
Start-Service fluentdwinsvc

Start the Collector executable manually 🔗

If you experience unexpected start failures, try to start the Collector executable manually.

To do so, run the following PowerShell command as an Admin:

& 'C:\Program Files\Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector\otelcol.exe' --config 'C:\ProgramData\Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector\agent_config.yaml'

Deployments 🔗

Splunk offers the configuration management options described in this section.

Ansible 🔗

Splunk provides an Ansible role that installs the package configured to collect data (metrics, traces, and logs) from Windows machines and send that data to Observability Cloud. See Ansible for Windows for the instructions to download and customize the role.

Chef 🔗

Splunk provides a cookbook to install the Collector using Chef. See Chef for the installation instructions.

Nomad 🔗

Use Nomad to deploy the Collector. To learn how to install Nomad, see Nomad.

Puppet 🔗

Splunk provides a Puppet module to install and configure the package. A module is a collection of resources, classes, files, definition, and templates. To learn how to download and customize the module, see Puppet for Windows.

Next steps 🔗

Once you have installed the package, you can perform these actions: