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 πŸ”—

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 πŸ”—

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 πŸ”—

The installer script is available for Windows 64-bit environments, and deploys and configures the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector for Windows and Fluentd through the td-agent, which is deactivated by default.

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 πŸ”—

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 πŸ”—

To configure proxy settings to install and run the OpenTelemetry Collector, see Configure proxy settings for the Collector.

Configure fluentd for log collection πŸ”—

If you have a Log Observer entitlement or wish to collect logs for the target host with Fluentd, use the with_fluentd = 1 option to also install Fluentd when installing the Collector. For example:

& {Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; $script = ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://dl.signalfx.com/splunk-otel-collector.ps1')); $params = @{access_token = "SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN"; realm = "SPLUNK_REALM"; with_fluentd = 1}; Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock ([scriptblock]::Create(". {$script} $(&{$args} @params)"))}

When activated, the Fluentd service is configured by default to collect and forward log events with the @SPLUNK label to the Collector, which then 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 πŸ”—

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'

Options of the installer script for Windows πŸ”—

The Windows installer script supports the following options:

Option

Description

Default value

access_token

The token used to send metric data to Splunk.

realm

The Splunk realm to use. The ingest, API, trace, and HEC endpoint URLs are automatically created using this value.

us0

memory

Total memory in MIB to allocate to the Collector. Automatically calculates the ballast size. See Sizing and scaling for more information.

512

mode

Configure the Collectorservice to run in host monitoring (agent) or data forwarding (gateway).

agent

network_interface

The network interface the Collectorreceivers listen on.

0.0.0.0

ingest_url

Set the base ingest URL explicitly instead of the URL inferred from the specified realm.

https://ingest.REALM.signalfx.com

api_url

Set the base API URL explicitly instead of the URL inferred from the specified realm.

https://api.REALM.signalfx.com

trace_url

Set the trace endpoint URL explicitly instead of the endpoint inferred from the specified realm.

https://ingest.REALM.signalfx.com/v2/trace

hec_url

Set the HEC endpoint URL explicitly instead of the endpoint inferred from the specified realm.

https://ingest.REALM.signalfx.com/v1/log

hec_token

Set the HEC token if it’s different than the specified Splunk access token.

with_fluentd

Whether to install and configure fluentd to forward log events to the collector. See Configure fluentd for log collection for more information.

$false

with_dotnet_instrumentation

Whether to install and configure .NET tracing to forward .NET application traces to the local collector.

$false

deployment_env

A system-wide environment tag used by .NET instrumentation. Sets the SIGNALFX_ENV environment variable. Ignored if -with_dotnet_instrumentation is set to false.

bundle_dir

The location of your Smart Agent bundle for monitor functionality.

C:\Program Files\Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector\agent-bundle

insecure

If true then certificates aren’t checked when downloading resources.

$false

collector_version

Specify a specific version of the Collector to install.

Latest version available

stage

The package stage to install from [test, beta, release].

release

collector_msi_url

When installing the Collector, instead of downloading the package, use this local path to a Splunk OpenTelemetry Collector MSI package. If specified, the -collector_version and -stage parameters are ignored.

https://dl.signalfx.com/splunk-otel-collector/
msi/release/splunk-otel-collector-<version>-amd64.msi

fluentd_msi_url

Specify the URL to the Fluentd MSI package to install.

https://packages.treasuredata.com/4/windows/td-agent-4.1.0-x64.msi

msi_path

Specify a local path to a Splunk OpenTelemetry Collector MSI package to install instead of downloading the package. If specified, the -collector_version and -stage parameters will be ignored.

Deployments πŸ”—

Splunk offers the configuration management options described in this section.

Ansible πŸ”—

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 Splunk Observability Cloud. See Ansible for Windows for the instructions to download and customize the role.

Chef πŸ”—

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

Nomad πŸ”—

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

Puppet πŸ”—

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 πŸ”—

After you have installed the package, you can do the following: