About Splunk licenses

Each instance of Splunk server must have its own license. This topic discusses the different Splunk licenses, how to install or update a license, and what to do when you have a violation on your license.

Note: You must purchase a separate license for every instance of Splunk that you deploy.

Which license?

Splunk provides two standard types of licenses, a Free license and an Enterprise license. To evaluate Enterprise features, you can request a trial Enterprise license before purchasing.

Note: If you evaluate a Splunk Preview release, it will include the required license.

Free versus Enterprise

When you download Splunk for the first time, you are asked to register. Your registration authorizes you to receive the Free license, which allows a maximum indexing volume of 500 MB/day. The Free license is not a trial license and does not have an expiration date. The Enterprise license enables higher data indexing volume and the following additional features:

Multiple user accounts and access controls.
Distributed search and data routing.
Deployment management.

To evaluate these features before you purchase an Enterprise license, you can request a 30-day trial Enterprise license.

Find more information about the different license features here. Also, read Splunk's Free license agreement.

Trial license

You can request trial Enterprise licenses of varying size and duration. The default evaluation period is 30 days. If you are running with a trial license and your license expires, Splunk continues to index your data. However, you will not be able to search until you install a new license.

Preview license

Splunk's Preview releases require a different license that is not compatible with other Splunk releases. Also, if you are evaluating a Preview release of Splunk, it will not run with a Free or Enterprise license. Preview licenses typically enable Enterprise features, they are just restricted to Preview releases.

Forwarding license

Each instance of Splunk server must have its own license. To configure Splunk for forwarding and receiving, contact Splunk Support and request a 1 MB/day license to install on each forwarder instance (any instance that is not indexing locally). For additional security, this license lets you configure different username and password pairs on each forwarder.

Note: This 1 MB/day forward-only license is not subtracted from your existing license(s) and can be applied to multiple forwarders.

Install your license

All Splunk servers have a license located in $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/, whether it is a Free license (splunk-free.license) or an Enterprise license (splunk.license). You can install and update your licenses with the CLI or from Splunk Web's Admin > License & Usage page.

Refer to the Installation Manual for instructions to install or update your Splunk license.

License violations

Violations occur when you exceed the maximum indexing volume allowed for your license. If you exceed your licensed daily volume on any one calendar day, you will get a violation warning. The message persists for 14 days. If you have more than 7 violations in a rolling 30-day period, search will be disabled. Search capabilities return when you have less than 7 violations in the previous 30 days or when you apply a new license with a larger volume limit.

Note: During a license violation period, Splunk does not stop indexing your data. Splunk only blocks access while you exceed your license.

If you have other issues with your license, refer to the Admin Manual for troubleshooting tips.

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