To get the most out of this book

To start with the book, you will first need to download Splunk from https://www.splunk.com/en_us/download.html.

You can find the official installation manual at http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Installation/Systemrequirements.

The codes in this book use a data generator which can be used to test the queries given in the book. However, since the data is randomly generated, not all queries will work as expected and you may have to modify them accordingly.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packt.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packt.com.
2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Improving-your-Splunk-skills. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "The events must have a _time field."

A block of code is set as follows:

sourcetype="impl_splunk_gen" ip="*"
| rex "ip=(?P<subnet>\d+\.\d+\.\d+)\.\d+"
| table ip subnet

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "There are several ways to define a field. Let's start by using the Extract Fields interface."

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.