Documentation: 3.2
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This page last updated: 07/28/08 02:07pm

SSL

The Splunk management port (default 8089) supports both SSL and plain text connections. SSL is turned on by default. To make changes to SSL settings, edit server.conf.

Note: This only enables SSL for Splunk's back-end communication. To turn on SSL for the browser, see enable HTTPS.

Important: If you are using Firefox 3, enabling SSL for a Splunk deployment may result in an "invalid security exception" being displayed in the browser. Refer to this workaround documentation for more information.

Configuration

When the Splunk Server is turned on for the first time, the server will generate a certificate for that instance. This certificate is stored in the $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/auth/ directory by default.

You can change SSL settings by editing $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/bundles/local/server.conf. Copy server.conf from $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/bundles/default/ to ../bundles/local/.

[sslConfig]
enableSplunkdSSL = true
keyfile = server.pem
keyfilePassword = password
caCertFile = cacert.pem
caPath = $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/auth
certCreateScript = $SPLUNK_HOME/bin/genSignedServerCert.py

  • enableSplunkdSSL = Setting this boolean key to true enables SSL in Splunk.
  • keyfile = Certificate for this Splunk instance (created on Splunk start-up by default - if the certCreateScript tag is present).

Note: The path to the keyfile is relative to $SPLUNK_HOME. If your keyfile is kept outside $SPLUNK_HOME, you will need to specify a full path outside of $SPLUNK_HOME to reach it.

  • keyfilePassword = Password for the pem file store, is set to password by default.
  • caCertFile = This is the name of the certificate authority file.
  • caPath = Path where the Splunk certificates are stored. Default is $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/auth.
  • certCreateScript = Script for creating & signing server certificates.

With the default script enabled, on startup, Splunk will generate a certificate in the caPath directory.

Deactivate SSL

To deactivate SSL, simply set enableSplunkdSSL to FALSE. This will disable SSL.

Certificate Authority (CA)

By default, all Splunk servers use the same CA. The CA's public and private keys are distributed with Splunk. This allows Splunk instances to connect to each other out of the box and to allow users to regenerate their server certs and sign them.

You can change this default behavior. There are two scripts located in $SPLUNK_HOME/bin that will let you generate your own CA and sign your server certificates.

  • genRootCA.sh

This script generates a Root CA. It will output the files cacerts.pem (public key) and ca.pem (public/private password protected PEM).

  • genSignedServerCert.sh

This script generates a certificate and will attempt to sign it by using ca.pem.

Previous: Enable HTTPS    |    Next: Configure roles

Comments

  1. mgansert: yes, you can, but you then cannot use Splunk's built-in certificate management features.
    Posted by rachel on Apr 03 2008, 2:43pm

  2. Is it currently possible to utilize a Red Hat CA rather than signing my own cert?
    Posted by mgansert on Apr 03 2008, 2:18pm

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