Splunk Updated SPLK-2002 Exam Questions and Answers by georgie

 Splunk internal logs are stored in the SPLUNK_HOME/var/log/splunk directory by default. The default log size for Splunk internal logs is 25 MB, which means that when a log file reaches 25 MB, Splunk rolls it to a backup file and creates a new log file. The default number of backup files is 5, which means that Splunk keeps up to 5 backup files for each log file

The Splunk deployer sends apps to the search head cluster members by default to the path etc/shcluster//default. The deployer is a Splunk component that distributes apps and configurations to members of a search head cluster.

Splunk's documentation recommends placing the configuration bundle in the $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/shcluster/apps directory on the deployer, which then gets distributed to the search head cluster members. However, it should be noted that within each app's directory, configurations can be under default or local subdirectories, with local taking precedence over default for configurations. The reference to etc/shcluster//default is not a standard directory structure and might be a misunderstanding. The correct path where the deployer pushes configuration bundles is $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/shcluster/apps

According to the Splunk Enterprise Capacity Planning and Hardware Sizing Guidelines, a distributed Splunk environment’s minimum search head specification must ensure that the system can efficiently manage search parsing, ad-hoc query execution, and knowledge object replication. Splunk officially recommends using a 64-bit x86 architecture system with a minimum of two physical CPU cores (or four vCPUs) running at 2 GHz or higher per core for acceptable performance.

Search heads are CPU-intensive components, primarily constrained by processor speed and the number of concurrent searches they must handle. Memory and disk space should scale with user concurrency and search load, but CPU capability remains the baseline requirement. While 128 GB RAM (Option C) is suitable for high-demand or Enterprise Security (ES) deployments, it exceeds the minimum hardware specification for general distributed search environments.

Splunk no longer supports 32-bit architectures (Option B). While a 1Gb Ethernet NIC (Option A) is common, it is not part of the minimum computational specification required by Splunk for search heads. The critical specification is processor capability — two physical cores or equivalent.

References (Splunk Enterprise Documentation):

• Splunk Enterprise Capacity Planning Manual – Hardware and Performance Guidelines

• Search Head Sizing and System Requirements

• Distributed Deployment Manual – Recommended System Specifications

• Splunk Hardware and Performance Tuning Guide

 The algorithm used to determine captaincy in a Splunk search head cluster is Raft distributed consensus. Raft is a consensus algorithm that is used to elect a leader among a group of nodes in a distributed system. In a Splunk search head cluster, Raft is used to elect a captain among the cluster members. The captain is the cluster member that is responsible for coordinating the search activities, replicating the configurations and apps, and pushing the knowledge bundles to the search peers. The captain is dynamically elected based on various criteria, such as CPU load, network latency, and search load. The captain can change over time, depending on the availability and performance of the cluster members. Rapt, Rift, and Round-robin are not valid algorithms for determining captaincy in a Splunk search head cluster