Deck 1: Splunk Core Certified User

Question 1

When an alert action is configured to run a script, Splunk must be able to locate the script. Which is one of the directories Splunk will look in to find the script?

A) $SPLUNK_HOME/bin/scripts
B) $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/scripts
C) $SPLUNK_HOME/bin/etc/scripts
D) $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/scripts/bin

Answer 1

A

Question 2

What does the rare command do?

A) Returns the least common field values of a given field in the results.
B) Returns the most common field values of a given field in the results.
C) Returns the top 10 field values of a given field in the results.
D) Returns the lowest 10 field values of a given field in the results.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

What must be done in order to use a lookup table in Splunk?

A) The lookup must be configured to run automatically.
B) The contents of the lookup file must be copied and pasted into the search bar.
C) The lookup file must be uploaded to Splunk and a lookup definition must be created.
D) The lookup file must be uploaded to the etc/apps/lookups folder for automatic ingestion.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

When writing searches in Splunk, which of the following is true about Booleans?

A) They must be lowercase.
B) They must be uppercase.
C) They must be in quotations.
D) They must be in parentheses.

Question 5

After running a search, what effect does clicking and dragging across the timeline have?

A) Executes a new search.
B) Filters current search results.
C) Moves to past or future events.
D) Expands the time range of the search.

Question 6

When sorting on multiple fields with the sort command, what delimiter can be used between the field names in the search?

A) |
B) $
C) !
D) ,

Question 7

Which Boolean operator is always implied between two search terms, unless otherwise specified?

A) OR
B) NOT
C) AND
D) XOR

Question 8

What is the correct syntax to count the number of events containing a vendor_action field?

A) count stats vendor_action
B) count stats (vendor_action)
C) stats count (vendor_action)
D) stats vendor_action (count)

Question 9

Which time range picker configuration would return real-time events for the past 30 seconds?

A) Preset - Relative: 30-seconds ago
B) Relative - Earliest: 30-seconds ago, Latest: Now
C) Real-time - Earliest: 30-seconds ago, Latest: Now
D) Advanced - Earliest: 30-seconds ago, Latest: Now

Question 10

Which search string only returns events from hostWWW3?

A) host=*
B) host=WWW3
C) host=WWW*
D) Host=WWW3

Question 11

Which of the following statements about case sensitivity is true?

A) Both field names and field values ARE case sensitive.
B) Field names ARE case sensitive; field values are NOT.
C) Field values ARE case sensitive; field names ARE NOT.
D) Both field names and field values ARE NOT case sensitive.

Question 12

Which of the following represents the Splunk recommended naming convention for dashboards?

A) Description_Group_Object
B) Group_Description_Object
C) Group_Object_Description
D) Object_Group_Description

Question 13

Which of the following are common constraints of the top command?

A) limit, count
B) limit, showpercent
C) limits, countfield
D) showperc, countfield

Question 14

What syntax is used to link key/value pairs in search strings?

A) action+purchase
B) action=purchase
C) action | purchase
D) action equal purchase

Question 15

Which statement is true about Splunk alerts?

A) Alerts are based on searches that are either run on a scheduled interval or in real-time.
B) Alerts are based on searches and when triggered will only send an email notification.
C) Alerts are based on searches and require cron to run on scheduled interval.
D) Alerts are based on searches that are run exclusively as real-time.

Question 16

By default, how long does Splunk retain a search job?

A) 10 Minutes
B) 15 Minutes
C) 1 Day
D) 7 Days

Question 17

A field exists in search results, but isn't being displayed in the fields sidebar. How can it be added to the fields sidebar?

A) Click All Fields and select the field to add it to Selected Fields.
B) Click Interesting Fields and select the field to add it to Selected Fields.
C) Click Selected Fields and select the field to add it to Interesting Fields.
D) This scenario isn't possible because all fields returned from a search always appear in the fields sidebar.

Question 18

When editing a dashboard, which of the following are possible options? (Choose all that apply.)

A) Add an output.
B) Export a dashboard panel.
C) Modify the chart type displayed in a dashboard panel.
D) Drag a dashboard panel to a different location on the dashboard.

Question 19

Which stats command function provides a count of how many unique values exist for a given field in the result set?

A) dc(field)
B) count(field)
C) count-by(field)
D) distinct-count(field)

Question 20

Which of the following is a Splunk search best practice?

A) Filter as early as possible.
B) Never specify more than one index.
C) Include as few search terms as possible.
D) Use wildcards to return more search results.

Question 21

What does the stats command do?

A) Automatically correlates related fields.
B) Converts field values into numerical values.
C) Calculates statistics on data that matches the search criteria.
D) Analyzes numerical fields for their ability to predict another discrete field.

Question 22

By default, which of the following is a Selected Field?

A) action
B) clientip
C) categoryId
D) sourcetype

Question 23

What is a suggested Splunk best practice for naming reports?

A) Reports are best named using many numbers so they can be more easily sorted.
B) Use a consistent naming convention so they are easily separated by characteristics such as group and object.
C) Name reports as uniquely as possible with no overlap to differentiate them from one another.
D) Any naming convention is fine as long as you keep an external spreadsheet to keep track.

Question 24

In the Splunk interface, the list of alerts can be filtered based on which characteristics?

A) App, Owner, Severity, and Type
B) App, Owner, Priority, and Status
C) App, Dashboard, Severity, and Type
D) App, Time Window, Type, and Severity

Question 25

Which search string returns a filed containing the number of matching events and names that field Event Count ?

A) index=security failure | stats sum as "Event Count"
B) index=security failure | stats count as "Event Count"
C) index=security failure | stats count by "Event Count"
D) index=security failure | stats dc(count) as "Event Count"

Question 26

What syntax is used to link key/value pairs in search strings?

A) Parentheses
B) @ or # symbols
C) Quotation marks
D) Relational operators such as =, <, or >

Question 27

Which of the following is a best practice when writing a search string?

A) Include all formatting commands before any search terms.
B) Include at least one function as this is a search requirement.
C) Include the search terms at the beginning of the search string.
D) Avoid using formatting clauses, as they add too much overhead.

Question 28

In the fields sidebar, what indicates that a field is numeric?

A) A number to the right of the field name.
B) A # symbol to the left of the field name.
C) A lowercase n to the left of the field name. A lowercase n to the left of the field name.
D) A lowercase n to the right of the field name. to the right of the field name.

Question 29

Which events will be returned by the following search string? host=www3 status=503

A) All events that either have a host of www3 or a status of 503 . All events that either have a host of www3 or a status 503 .
B) All events with a host of www3 that also have a status of 503 . All events with a that also have a
C) We need more information; we cannot tell without knowing the time range.
D) We need more information; a search cannot be run without specifying an index.

Question 30

When placed early in a search, which command is most effective at reducing search execution time?

A) dedup
B) rename
C) sort -
D) fields +

Question 31

When looking at a statistics table, what is one way to drill down to see the underlying events?

A) Creating a pivot table.
B) Clicking on the visualizations tab.
C) Viewing your report in a dashboard.
D) Clicking on any field value in the table.

Question 32

What can be configured using the Edit Job Settings menu?

A) Export the result to CSV format.
B) Add the Job results to a dashboard.
C) Schedule the Job to re-run in 10 minutes.
D) Change Job Lifetime from 10 minutes to 7 days.

Question 33

Which is primary function of the timeline located under the search bar?

A) To differentiate between structured and unstructured events in the data.
B) To sort the events returned by the search command in chronological order.
C) To zoom in and zoom out, although this does not change the scale of the chart.
D) To show peaks and/or valleys in the timeline, which can indicate spikes in activity or downtime.

Question 34

Which search matches the events containing the terms "error" and "fail"?

A) index=security Error Fail
B) index=security error OR fail
C) index=security "error failure"
D) index=security NOT error NOT fail

Question 35

Which of the following are functions of the stats command?

A) count, sum, add
B) count, sum, less
C) sum, avg, values
D) sum, values, table

Question 36

What user interface component allows for time selection?

A) Time summary
B) Time range picker
C) Search time picker
D) Data source time statistics

Question 37

What type of search can be saved as a report?

A) Any search can be saved as a report.
B) Only searches that generate visualizations.
C) Only searches containing a transforming command.
D) Only searches that generate statistics or visualizations.

Question 38

Which of the following index searches would provide the most efficient search performance?

A) index=*
B) index=web OR index=s*
C) (index=web OR index=sales)
D) *index=sales AND index=web*

Question 39

What happens when a field is added to the Selected Fields list in the fields sidebar?

A) Splunk will re-run the search job in Verbose Mode to prioritize the new Selected Field.
B) Splunk will highlight related fields as a suggestion to add them to the Selected Fields list.
C) Custom selections will replace the Interesting Fields that Splunk populated into the list at search time.
D) The selected field and its corresponding values will appear underneath the events in the search results.

Question 40

Which statement is true about the top command?

A) It returns the top 10 results.
B) It displays the output in table format.
C) It returns the count and percent columns per row.
D) All of the above.

Question 41

Splunk shows data in __________________.

A) ASCII Character order.
B) Reverse chronological order.
C) Alphanumeric order.
D) Chronological order.

Question 42

Which is the default app for Splunk Enterprise?

A) Splunk Enterprise Security Suite
B) Searching and Reporting
C) Reporting and Searching
D) Splunk apps for Security

Question 43

Which component of Splunk let us write SPL query to find the required data?

A) Forwarders
B) Indexer
C) Heavy Forwarders
D) Search head

Question 44

Which of the following can be used as wildcard search in Splunk?

A) =
B) >
C) !
D) *

Question 45

Prefix wildcards might cause performance issues.

Question 46

What kind of logs can Splunk Index?

A) Only A, B
B) Router and Switch Logs
C) Firewall and Web Server Logs
D) Only C
E) Database logs
F) All firewall, web server, database, router and switch logs

Question 47

Log filtering/parsing can be done from _____________.

A) Index Forwarders (IF)
B) Universal Forwarders (UF)
C) Super Forwarder (SF)
D) Heavy Forwarders (HF)

Question 48

Splunk apps are used for following (Choose three.):

A) Designed to cater numerous use cases and empower Splunk.
B) We can not install Splunk App.
C) Allows multiple workspaces for different use cases / user roles.
D) It is collection of different Splunk config files like data inputs, UI and Knowledge Object.

Question 49

Three basic components of Splunk are (Choose three.):

A) Forwarders
B) Deployment Server
C) Indexer
D) Knowledge Objects
E) Index
F) Search Head

Question 50

According to Splunk best practices, which placement of the wildcard results in the most efficient search?

A) f*il
B) *fail
C) fail*
D) *fail*

Question 51

Which of the following describes lookup files?

A) Lookup fields cannot be used in searches.
B) Lookups contain static data available in the index.
C) Lookups add more fields to results returned by a search.
D) Lookups pull data at index time and add them to search results.

Question 52

Machine data can be in structured and unstructured format.

Question 53

We should use heavy forwarder for sending event-based data to Indexers.

Question 54

What is Splunk?

A) Splunk is a software platform to search, analyze and visualize the machine-generated data.
B) Database management tool.
C) Security Information and Event Management (SIEM).
D) Cloud based application that help in analyzing logs.

Question 55

Which component of Splunk is primarily responsible for saving data?

A) Search Head
B) Heavy Forwarder
C) Indexer
D) Universal Forwarder

Question 56

What result will you get with following search index=test sourcetype="The_Questionnaire_P*" ?

A) the_questionnaire _pedia
B) the_questionnaire pedia
C) the_questionnaire_pedia
D) the_questionnaire Pedia

Question 57

Which command automatically returns percent and count columns when executing searches?

A) top
B) stats
C) table
D) percent

Question 58

How many main user roles do you have in Splunk?

A) 2
B) 4
C) 1
D) 3

Question 59

Splunk Enterprise is used as a Scalable service in Splunk Cloud.

Question 60

_______________ transforms raw data into events and distributes the results into an index.

A) Index
B) Search Head
C) Indexer
D) Forwarder

Question 61

You can on-board data to Splunk using following means (Choose four.):

A) Props
B) CLI
C) Splunk Web
D) savedsearches.conf
E) Splunk apps and add-ons
F) indexes.conf
G) inputs.conf
H) metadata.conf

Question 62

______________ is the default web port used by Splunk.

A) 8089
B) 8000
C) 8080
D) 443

Question 63

Splunk automatically determines the source type for major data types.

Question 64

Upload option creates inputs.conf

A) Yes
B) No

Question 65

Forward Option gather and forward data to indexers over a receiving port from remote machines.

Question 66

Select the correct option that applies to Index time processing (Choose three.).

A) Indexing
B) Searching
C) Parsing
D) Settings
E) Input

Question 67

Parsing of data can happen both in HF and Indexer.

A) Only HF
B) No
C) Yes

Question 68

Search Assistant is enabled by default in the SPL editor with compact settings.

A) No
B) Yes

Question 69

The new data uploaded in Splunk are shown in ________________.

A) Real-time
B) 10 Minutes
C) Overnight Download
D) 30 Minutes

Question 70

Beginning parentheses is automatically highlighted to guide you on the presence of complimenting parentheses.

A) No
B) Yes

Question 71

Splunk indexes the data on the basis of timestamps.

Question 72

In monitor option you can select the following options in GUI.

A) Only HTTP Event Collector (HEC) and TCP/UDP
B) None of the above
C) Only TCP/UDP
D) Only Scripts
E) Filed & Directories, HTTP Event Collector (HEC), TCP/UDP and Scripts

Question 73

Data sources being opened and read applies to:

A) None of the above
B) Indexing Phase
C) Parsing Phase
D) Input Phase
E) License Metering

Question 74

Every Search in Splunk is also called _____________.

A) None of the above
B) Job
C) Search Only

Question 75

Which of the statements are correct about HF? (Choose three.)

A) Parsing
B) Masking
C) Searching
D) Forwarding

Question 76

Field values are case sensitive.

Question 77

Zoom Out and Zoom to Selection re-executes the search.

A) No
B) Yes

Question 78

License Meter runs before data compression.

A) No
B) Yes

Question 79

Fields are searchable name and value pairings that differentiates one event from another.

Question 80

@ Symbol can be used in advanced time unit option.

A) No
B) Yes