SPLK-2002 Practice Test 4 — 10 Questions

Question 1

In an indexer cluster, what happens if the cluster master is permanently lost and you do not have a backup of the 'master-apps' directory?

Accepted Answer

You will be unable to distribute new configuration updates. The cluster master stores cluster-wide configuration in $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/master-apps, which is bundled and pushed to peers via the configuration replication mechanism. If the master is lost without a backup of master-apps, you can rebuild a master and rejoin peers, but the custom configurations (indexes, props, transforms, etc.) that were only on the master are gone, so you cannot distribute new or updated configuration bundles. Data itself resides on the peers and is not lost, and peers continue serving searches with their last-received configuration.

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The data is permanently lost

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The indexers continue to work normally indefinitely

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You can restore the configuration from the peer nodes

Question 2

Which tool is best for monitoring the health and performance of the entire Splunk environment?

Accepted Answer

Monitoring Console. The Monitoring Console (formerly known as the Distributed Management Console) is Splunk's built-in tool specifically designed to monitor the health, performance, and topology of an entire Splunk deployment. It provides dashboards for indexing, search, resource usage, and license usage across all components. It is the recommended tool for holistic environment monitoring.

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Splunk CLI

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Deployment Server

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Splunk Web UI

Question 3

What must be installed on all Search Head Cluster members before they can join the cluster?

Accepted Answer

The same security key. All Search Head Cluster members must share the same security key (also called the cluster key or passphrase) to authenticate and join the cluster. This key is set via the `splunk edit shcluster-config -secret` command or in `server.conf` under `[shclustering]` with the `pass4SymmKey` setting. Without an identical key, members cannot establish trust and will fail to form the cluster.

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A shared SSL certificate

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A dedicated storage partition

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A specialized Splunk App

Question 4

When adding a new indexer to a multisite cluster, which attribute must be correctly set in the configuration before joining the cluster?

Accepted Answer

The site assignment. In a multisite indexer cluster, each indexer must be assigned to a site (site0, site1, etc.) via the 'site' attribute in server.conf under the [general] stanza or in the clustering stanza. This site assignment determines replication and search affinity behavior, so it must be correctly set before the indexer joins the cluster.

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The indexer's role

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The license server path

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The search head affinity index

Question 5

You manage a Splunk indexer cluster with three peer nodes, a cluster manager, and a search head. The search head is configured with the cluster manager's URI in its server.conf under [clustering]. A new compliance requirement mandates that all searchable data copies must remain on the original peer that indexed the data, and replication to other peers is strictly prohibited. What should you do to meet this requirement while keeping the cluster functional?

Accepted Answer

Disable indexer clustering and revert the peers to standalone indexers, then configure the search head to query each indexer directly.. Indexer clustering is designed to replicate buckets across peers for fault tolerance and search efficiency. It does not support a mode where buckets are permanently pinned to their originating peer. The only way to meet a strict data locality requirement is to avoid clustering altogether and use standalone indexers with distributed search, ensuring that each indexer only stores and serves its own data.

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Configure the search head to use only the originating peer for searches by setting search_factor to 0 and disabling replication.

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Set replication_factor to 1 in the cluster manager's server.conf under [clustering] and push the configuration to all peers.

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Set the cluster manager to maintenance mode and manually assign buckets to peers using the splunk CLI bucket command.

Question 6

You are investigating a scenario where search performance has degraded. You observe that many searches are hitting the 'warm' buckets but not the 'cold' buckets. Where should you look to verify bucket rotation policies?

Accepted Answer

indexes.conf. Bucket rotation policies — including the thresholds that move buckets from hot to warm to cold to frozen, and the retention periods for each — are defined per index in indexes.conf. Parameters like maxHotBuckets, maxWarmDBCount, frozenTimePeriodInSecs, and homePath/coldPath control when and where buckets roll. To verify or change rotation behavior, you inspect indexes.conf on the indexers (or via the cluster manager for clustered environments).

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outputs.conf

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inputs.conf

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server.conf

Question 7

Which of the following is a key advantage of using a Search Head Cluster over a single search head?

Accepted Answer

High availability of search and user interface. A Search Head Cluster (SHC) provides high availability and horizontal scaling for search and UI workloads: if one member fails, others continue serving searches, and users can be load-balanced across members. The captain coordinates configuration replication and artifact replication, but the core benefit is resilience and capacity for search, not indexing. Indexing is handled by indexers, not search heads, so SHC does not improve indexing performance.

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Faster indexing performance

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Reduced license costs

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Smaller storage footprint

Question 8

A Splunk architect notices that an indexer cluster's search head is returning incomplete results for a search spanning the last 7 days. The Monitoring Console shows that several buckets are missing their searchable copies, and the cluster master reports a search factor (SF) of 2 but replication factor (RF) of 3. Which of the following best explains why the search results are incomplete and what should be done to remediate the issue?

Accepted Answer

The indexer cluster is under-replicated; wait for automatic fix-up or manually trigger fix-up to create additional searchable copies to meet the search factor.. In an indexer cluster, the search factor determines how many searchable copies of each bucket are maintained. When searchable copies are missing, searches may not see all data because the search head can only search buckets that are searchable on the indexers. The cluster master orchestrates fix-up to create additional copies, but if fix-up is not progressing, manual intervention may be required. Addressing the searchable copy deficit directly resolves the incomplete search results.

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The indexer cluster's replication factor is set higher than the number of indexers; reduce RF to match the number of indexers and restart the cluster.

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The search head is not configured to use the cluster master for search; configure the search head to point to the cluster master and restart Splunk.

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The search head is experiencing a network partition; verify connectivity between the search head and all indexers, and restart the search head.

Question 9

An architect is troubleshooting a Splunk deployment where search head cluster members are unable to replicate the search head captain's knowledge bundle. The captain's log shows repeated errors about failing to push the bundle to a member. Which of the following is the most likely cause and the appropriate resolution?

Accepted Answer

The captain's management port (default 8089) is blocked by a firewall between the captain and the members; open the port to allow bundle replication.. In a search head cluster, the captain is responsible for replicating the knowledge bundle to all members. This replication occurs over the management port (8089 by default). If a firewall blocks this port between the captain and a member, the captain cannot push the bundle, leading to replication errors. Ensuring the management port is open and accessible on all members resolves the issue. This is a common configuration oversight in environments with strict network policies.

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The search head cluster members are using a different Splunk version than the captain; upgrade all members to match the captain's version.

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The search head cluster members have insufficient disk space to store the knowledge bundle; free up disk space on the members.

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The captain's replication factor for the knowledge bundle is set to 0; increase the replication factor to at least 1.

Question 10

An architect is configuring a Splunk indexer cluster with SmartStore. The remote storage is an S3 bucket. To ensure data integrity and availability, the architect must configure the cluster to use a remote storage that supports which feature?

Accepted Answer

Strong read-after-write consistency. SmartStore relies on strong read-after-write consistency to ensure that uploaded buckets are immediately visible to all indexers. This guarantees that searches access the most recent data and prevents inconsistencies, making it a fundamental requirement for remote storage backends.

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Cross-region replication

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Server-side encryption

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Object versioning