Docs » Get started with the Splunk Distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector » Get started with the Collector for Windows » Install the Collector for Windows using the MSI installer

Install the Collector for Windows using the MSI installer 🔗

You can use the Windows MSI installer to install the Splunk Distribution of the Collector for Windows.

Note

The Splunk Distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector comes with a default configuration, as detailed in Collector for Windows default configuration. To modify this configuration, refer to Advanced configuration for Windows.

To learn how to obtain logs, see Collect logs for the Collector for Windows.

Alternatively, you can also install the Collector for Windows:

Prerequisites 🔗

The Collector supports the following Windows versions, depending on the installation method:

Install method

Supported versions (64-bit)

Installer script

Windows 10 Pro and Home, Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022

Windows installer (MSI)

Windows 10 Pro and Home, Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022

Ansible

Windows 10 Pro and Home, Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022

Chef

Windows 10 Pro and Home, Windows Server 2019, 2022

Nomad

Windows 10 Pro and Home, Windows Server 2016, 2019

Puppet

Windows 10 Pro and Home, Windows Server 2016, 2019

Docker

Windows 10 Pro and Home, Windows Server 2019, 2022

Note

PowerShell 3.0 or higher is required.

Install the Collector using the Windows installer file (MSI) 🔗

To install the package using Windows Installer, download the Windows MSI package (64-bit only) from the Collector’s GitHub release site .

  • The package is installed to \Program Files\Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector.

  • The splunk-otel-collector service is created, but not started.

  • A default configuration file is copied to \ProgramData\Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector\agent_config.yaml, if it does not already exist. This file is required to start the splunk-otel-collector service.

Note

The ProgramData folder is hidden by default on Windows.

Next, follow the installer steps, or install the Collector using a PowerShell terminal.

Install using the graphical installer 🔗

Run the downloaded package and follow the instructions in the guided setup.

Install using a PowerShell terminal 🔗

Follow these steps:

  1. Open a PowerShell terminal.

  2. Run the following command, where PATH_TO_MSI is the full path to the downloaded package. For example, C:\your\download\folder\splunk-otel-collector-0.4.0-amd64.msi.

    Start-Process -Wait msiexec "/i PATH_TO_MSI /qn"

  3. Configure the Collector using the variables listed in the table that follows:

    Start-Process -Wait msiexec "/i PATH_TO_MSI /qn SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN=<my_access_token>"

Use the following installation configurations with the MSI deployment method:

Name

Description

Default

SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN

The Splunk access token to authenticate requests.

Empty

SPLUNK_API_URL

The Splunk API URL.

https://api.[SPLUNK_REALM].signalfx.com

SPLUNK_BUNDLE_DIR

The path to the Smart Agent bundle.

[INSTALLDIR]\OpenTelemetry Collector\agent-bundle

SPLUNK_COLLECTD_DIR

The path to the collectd config directory for the Smart Agent. For example, /usr/lib/splunk-otel-collector/agent-bundle/run/collectd

Optional. Only added if passed to msiexec command.

SPLUNK_CONFIG

Destination path of the Collector custom configuration file.

[CommonAppDataFolder]Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector\[SPLUNK_SETUP_COLLECTOR_MODE]_config.yaml

SPLUNK_GATEWAY_URL

URL in Gateway mode.

Optional. Only added if passed to msiexec command.

SPLUNK_HEC_TOKEN

The Splunk HEC authentication token.

[SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN]

SPLUNK_HEC_URL

The Splunk HEC endpoint URL.

https://ingest.[SPLUNK_REALM].signalfx.com/v1/log

SPLUNK_INGEST_URL

The Splunk ingest URL.

https://ingest.[SPLUNK_REALM].signalfx.com

SPLUNK_LISTEN_INTERFACE

The network interface the agent receivers listen on.

Optional. Only added if passed to msiexec command.

SPLUNK_MEMORY_LIMIT_MIB

Use it to set the memory limit for the memory_limiter processor.

Optional. Only added if passed to msiexec command.

SPLUNK_MEMORY_TOTAL_MIB

Total memory in MiB to allocate to the Collector

Optional. Only added if passed to msiexec command.

SPLUNK_REALM

Your Splunk realm.

us0

SPLUNK_SETUP_COLLECTOR_MODE

Install property that sets the Collector’s deployment mode to either agent or gateway. Learn more at Collector deployment modes.

agent

SPLUNK_TRACE_URL

The Splunk trace endpoint URL.

https://ingest.[SPLUNK_REALM].signalfx.com/v2/trace

  1. Start the splunk-otel-collector service by rebooting the system or by running the following command in a PowerShell terminal:

Start-Service splunk-otel-collector

Learn more about advanced configuration options (including Service Logging) using PowerShell in the following docs:

Install Fluentd MSI for log collection 🔗

If you have a wish to collect logs for the target host, make sure Fluentd is installed and enabled in your Collector instance.

Note

You need to be an Admin to configure log collection with Fluentd.

Perform the following steps to install Fluentd and forward collected log events to the Collector:

  1. Install Fluentd MSI version 4.0 or higher.

  2. Configure Fluentd to collect log events and forward them to the Collector:

    • Option 1: Update the default config file provided by the Fluentd MSI at \opt\td-agent\etc\td-agent\td-agent.conf to collect the desired log events and forward them to 127.0.0.1:8006.

    • Option 2: The installed Collector package provides a custom Fluentd config file \Program Files\Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector\fluentd\td-agent.conf to collect log events from the Windows Event Log \Program Files\Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector\fluentd\conf.d\eventlog.conf and forwards them to 127.0.0.1:8006.

    To use these files, backup the \opt\td-agent\etc\td-agent` directory, and copy the contents from \Program Files\Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector\fluentd` to \opt\td-agent\etc\td-agent`.

  3. To apply any changes made to the Fluentd config files, restart the system, or restart fluentdwinsvc .

- Stop-Service fluentdwinsvc
- Start-Service fluentdwinsvc

  1. View the Fluentd service logs and errors in \opt\td-agent\td-agent.log.

Learn more about general Fluentd configuration details in the official Fluentd documentation .

Custom MSI URLs 🔗

By default, the Collector MSI is downloaded from https://dl.signalfx.com and the Fluentd MSI is downloaded from https://packages.treasuredata.com .

To specify custom URLs for these downloads, replace COLLECTOR_MSI_URL and FLUENTD_MSI_URL with the URLs to the desired MSI packages to install:

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

Install the Collector using a Chocolatey package 🔗

A Chocolatey package is available to download, install, and configure the Collector and Fluentd with the following PowerShell command:

choco install splunk-otel-collector --params="'/SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN:MY_SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN /SPLUNK_REALM:MY_SPLUNK_REALM'"

Next steps 🔗

After you have installed the package, see:

This page was last updated on Oct 15, 2024.