Kintyre’s Splunk CONFiguration tool¶

Welcome to KSCONF 0.6

Intro¶

This utility handles a number of common Splunk app maintenance tasks surrounding the management of .conf files. Specifically, this tools deals with many of the nuances with storing Splunk apps in a version control system like git and pointing live Splunk apps to a working tree, merging changes from the live system’s (local) folder to the version controlled (default) folder, and dealing with more than one layer of “default” (which Splunk can’t handle natively).

Install¶

Ksconf can be directly installed as a Python (via pip) or as a Splunk app. The python package approach has been the traditional option, but for many reasons isn’t always easy for non-python developers so we’ve added the Splunk app option to make things easier

Note

What’s the difference? At this time the Splunk app approach should still be considered a “preview” feature. But this is purely a question of distribution; the content and functionality is exactly the same no matter how you choose to install ksconf.

To install as a python package, run the following:

pip install kintyre-splunk-conf

If you’d like to install via the Splunk app, download the latest ksconf-app_for_splunk-ver.tgz file from the GitHub releases page and install it into Splunk. Then, run the one-time registration command to make ksconf executable:

splunk cmd python $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps/ksconf/bin/bootstrap_bin.py

This will add ksconf to Splunk’s bin folder, thus making it executable either as ksconf or worse case splunk cmd ksconf. (If you can run splunk without giving it a path, then ksconf should work too. At some point we may add an option for you to do this setup step from the UI.

Installation Guide¶

The following doc describes installation options for Kintyre’s Splunk Configuration tool. KSCONF is available as a normal Python package that should require very minimal effort to install and upgrade. However, sometimes Python packaging gets ugly.

Because of the amount of the degree of complexity installing custom Python packages requires on many enterprise-class Linux distributions which tend to ship with old versions and run for many years, we decided to start shipping ksconf as a Splunk app. While this isn’t a traditional use-case for a Splunk app, (because ksconf typically runs outside of Splunk, not from within it), it is a very useful deployment mechanism.

For that reason, we suggest that most new users start with the KSCONF app for Splunk and only fallback to the traditional Python-package based approach as needed.

If you do find that a python-level install is required or just preferable, then please take advantage of the vast amount of install scenarios I documented before we build the KSCONF Splunk app. More notes and troubleshooting tips are located in the Advanced Installation Guide.

Overview¶

Install	Advantages	Potential pitfalls
Python package	Most ‘pure’ and flexible way to install. Many Linux distro’s don’t ship with `pip` One command install. (ideally) Easy upgrades	Lots of potential variations and pitfalls Too many install options (complexity) Must consider/coordinate install user. Often requires some admin access.
Splunk app	Quick installation (single download) Requires one time bootstrap command Self contained; no admin access require Great way to get started with minimal fuss.	No CLI completion (yet) Can’t add custom extensions (entrypoints) Crippled Python install (no `pip`) Grandfather Paradox
Offline package	Security: strict review and change control See Advanced Installation Guide.	Requires many steps. Inherits ‘Python package’ pitfalls.

Quick install¶

Download and install the KSCONF App for Splunk. Then open a shell, switch to the Splunk user account and run this one-time bootstrap command.

splunk cmd python $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps/ksconf/bin/bootstrap_bin.py

Using pip:

pip install kintyre-splunk-conf

System-level install: (For Mac/Linux)

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | sudo python - kintyre-splunk-conf

Enable Bash completion:

If you’re on a Mac or Linux, and would like to enable bash completion, run these commands:

pip install argcomplete
echo 'eval "$(register-python-argcomplete ksconf)"' >> ~/.bashrc

(Currently for Splunk APP installs; not because it can’t work, but because it’s not documented or tested yet. Pull request welcome.)

Requirements¶

Python package install:

Python Supports Python 2.7, 3.4+

PIP (strongly recommended)

Tested on Mac, Linux, and Windows

Splunk app install:

Splunk 6.0 or greater is installed

Check Python version¶

Check your installed python version by running:

python --version

Note that Linux distributions and Mac OS X that ship with multiple version of Python may have renamed this to python2, python2.7 or similar.

Check PIP Version¶

pip --version

If you are running a different python interpreter version, you can instead run this as:

python2.7 -m pip --version

Install from GIT¶

If you’d like to contribute to ksconf, or just build the latest and greatest, then install from the git repository is a good choice. (Technically this is still installing with pip, so it’s easy to switch between a PyPI install, and a local install.)

git clone https://github.com/Kintyre/ksconf.git
cd ksconf
pip install .

See developer docs for additional details about contributing to ksconf.

Command line completion¶

Bash completion allows for a more intuitive interactive workflow by providing quick access to command line options and file completions. Often this saves time since the user can avoid mistyping file names or be reminded of which command line actions and arguments are available without switching contexts. For example, if the user types ksconf d and hits Tab then the ksconf diff is completed. Or if the user types ksconf and hits Tab twice, the full list of command actions are listed.

This feature uses the argcomplete Python package and supports Bash, zsh, tcsh.

Install via pip:

pip install argcomplete

Enable command line completion for ksconf can be done in two ways. The easiest option is to enable it for ksconf only. (However, it only works for the current user, it can break if the ksconf command is referenced in a non-standard way.) The alternate option is to enable global command line completion for all python scripts at once, which is preferable if you use this module with many python tool.

Enable argcomplete for ksconf only:

# Edit your bashrc script
vim ~.bashrc

# Add the following line
eval "$(register-python-argcomplete ksconf)"

# Restart you shell, or just reload by running
source ~/.bashrc

To enable argcomplete globally, run the command:

activate-global-python-argcomplete

This adds new script to your the bash_completion.d folder, which can be use for all scripts and all users, but it does add some minor overhead to each completion command request.

OS-specific notes:

Mac OS X: The global registration option has issue due the old version of Bash shipped by default. So either use the one-shot registration or install a later version of bash with homebrew: brew install bash then. Switch to the newer bash by default with chsh /usr/local/bin/bash.
Windows: Argcomplete doesn’t work on windows Bash for GIT. See argcomplete issue 142 for more info. If you really want this, use Linux subsystem for Windows instead.

Command line reference¶

The following documents the CLI options

ksconf¶

usage: ksconf [-h] [--version] [--force-color]
              {check,combine,diff,filter,promote,merge,minimize,snapshot,sort,rest-export,unarchive}
              ...

Ksconf: Kintyre Splunk CONFig tool

This utility handles a number of common Splunk app maintenance tasks in a small
and easy to deploy package.  Specifically, this tools deals with many of the
nuances with storing Splunk apps in git, and pointing live Splunk apps to a git
repository.  Merging changes from the live system's (local) folder to the
version controlled (default) folder, and dealing with more than one layer of
"default" (which splunk can't handle natively) are all supported tasks.

positional arguments:
  {check,combine,diff,filter,promote,merge,minimize,snapshot,sort,rest-export,unarchive}
    check               Perform basic syntax and sanity checks on .conf files
    combine             Combine configuration files across multiple source
                        directories into a single destination directory. This
                        allows for an arbitrary number of splunk configuration
                        layers to coexist within a single app. Useful in both
                        ongoing merge and one-time ad-hoc use. For example,
                        combine can consolidate 'users' directory across
                        several instances after a phased server migration.
    diff                Compare settings differences between two .conf files
                        ignoring spacing and sort order
    filter              A stanza-aware GREP tool for conf files
    promote             Promote .conf settings from one file into another
                        either in batch mode (all changes) or interactively
                        allowing the user to pick which stanzas and keys to
                        integrate. Changes made via the UI (stored in the
                        local folder) can be promoted (moved) to a version-
                        controlled directory.
    merge               Merge two or more .conf files
    minimize            Minimize the target file by removing entries
                        duplicated in the default conf(s)
    snapshot            Snapshot .conf file directories into a JSON dump
                        format
    sort                Sort a Splunk .conf file creating a normalized format
                        appropriate for version control
    rest-export         Export .conf settings as a curl script to apply to a
                        Splunk instance later (via REST)
    unarchive           Install or upgrade an existing app in a git-friendly
                        and safe way

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  --force-color         Force TTY color mode on. Useful if piping the output a
                        color-aware pager, like 'less -R'

ksconf check¶

usage: ksconf check [-h] [--quiet] FILE [FILE ...]

Provide basic syntax and sanity checking for Splunk's .conf files. Use
Splunk's builtin 'btool check' for a more robust validation of keys and
values. Consider using this utility as part of a pre-commit hook.

positional arguments:
  FILE         One or more configuration files to check. If '-' is given, then
               read a list of files to validate from standard input

optional arguments:
  -h, --help   show this help message and exit
  --quiet, -q  Reduce the volume of output.

ksconf combine¶

usage: ksconf combine [-h] [--target TARGET] [--dry-run] [--banner BANNER]
                      source [source ...]

Merge .conf settings from multiple source directories into a combined target
directory.   Configuration files can be stored in a '/etc/*.d' like directory
structure and consolidated back into a single 'default' directory.

This command supports both one-time operations and recurring merge jobs.  For
example, this command can be used to combine all users knowledge objects (stored
in 'etc/users') after a server migration, or to merge a single user's settings
after an their account has been renamed.  Recurring operations assume some type
of external scheduler is being used.  A best-effort is made to only write to
target files as needed.

The 'combine' command takes your logical layers of configs (upstream, corporate,
splunk admin fixes, and power user knowledge objects, ...) expressed as
individual folders and merges them all back into the single 'default' folder
that Splunk reads from.  One way to keep the 'default' folder up-to-date is
using client-side git hooks.

No directory layout is mandatory, but but one simple approach is to model your
layers using a prioritized 'default.d' directory structure. (This idea is
borrowed from the Unix System V concept where many services natively read their
config files from '/etc/*.d' directories.)

THE PROBLEM:

In a typical enterprise deployment of Splunk, a single app can easily have
multiple logical sources of configuration:  (1) The upstream app developer, (2)
local developer app-developer adds organization-specific customizations or
fixes, (3) splunk admin tweaks the inappropriate 'indexes.conf' settings, and
(4) custom knowledge objects added by your subject matter experts.  Ideally we'd
like to version control these, but doing so is complicated because normally you
have to manage all 4 of these logical layers in one 'default' folder.  (Splunk
requires that app settings be located either in 'default' or 'local'; and
managing local files with version control leads to merge conflicts; so
effectively, all version controlled settings need to be in 'default', or risk
merge conflicts.)  So when a new upstream version is released, someone has to
manually upgrade the app being careful to preserve all custom configurations.
The solution provided by the 'combine' functionality is that all of these
logical sources can be stored separately in their own physical directories
allowing changes to be managed independently.  (This also allows for different
layers to be mixed-and-matched by selectively including which layers to
combine.)  While this doesn't completely remove the need for a human to review
app upgrades, it does lower the overhead enough that updates can be pulled in
more frequently, thus reducing the divergence potential.  (Merge frequently.)

NOTES:

The 'combine' command is similar to running the 'merge' subcommand recursively
against a set of directories.  One key difference is that this command will
gracefully handle non-conf files intelligently too.

EXAMPLE:

    Splunk_CiscoSecuritySuite/
    ├── README
    ├── default.d
    │   ├── 10-upstream
    │   │   ├── app.conf
    │   │   ├── data
    │   │   │   └── ui
    │   │   │       ├── nav
    │   │   │       │   └── default.xml
    │   │   │       └── views
    │   │   │           ├── authentication_metrics.xml
    │   │   │           ├── cisco_security_overview.xml
    │   │   │           ├── getting_started.xml
    │   │   │           ├── search_ip_profile.xml
    │   │   │           ├── upgrading.xml
    │   │   │           └── user_tracking.xml
    │   │   ├── eventtypes.conf
    │   │   ├── macros.conf
    │   │   ├── savedsearches.conf
    │   │   └── transforms.conf
    │   ├── 20-my-org
    │   │   └── savedsearches.conf
    │   ├── 50-splunk-admin
    │   │   ├── indexes.conf
    │   │   ├── macros.conf
    │   │   └── transforms.conf
    │   └── 70-firewall-admins
    │       ├── data
    │       │   └── ui
    │       │       └── views
    │       │           ├── attacks_noc_bigscreen.xml
    │       │           ├── device_health.xml
    │       │           └── user_tracking.xml
    │       └── eventtypes.conf

Commands:

    cd Splunk_CiscoSecuritySuite
    ksconf combine default.d/* --target=default

positional arguments:
  source                The source directory where configuration files will be
                        merged from. When multiple sources directories are
                        provided, start with the most general and end with the
                        specific; later sources will override values from the
                        earlier ones. Supports wildcards so a typical Unix
                        'conf.d/##-NAME' directory structure works well.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --target TARGET, -t TARGET
                        Directory where the merged files will be stored.
                        Typically either 'default' or 'local'
  --dry-run, -D         Enable dry-run mode. Instead of writing to TARGET,
                        preview changes as a 'diff'. If TARGET doesn't exist,
                        then show the merged file.
  --banner BANNER, -b BANNER
                        A warning banner to discourage manual editing of conf
                        files.

ksconf diff¶

usage: ksconf diff [-h] [-o FILE] [--comments] CONF1 CONF2

Compares the content differences of two .conf files

This command ignores textual differences (like order, spacing, and comments) and
focuses strictly on comparing stanzas, keys, and values.  Note that spaces
within any given value will be compared.  Multiline fields are compared in are
compared in a more traditional 'diff' output so that long savedsearches and
macros can be compared more easily.

positional arguments:
  CONF1                 Left side of the comparison
  CONF2                 Right side of the comparison

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -o FILE, --output FILE
                        File where difference is stored. Defaults to standard
                        out.
  --comments, -C        Enable comparison of comments. (Unlikely to work
                        consistently)

ksconf filter¶

usage: ksconf filter [-h] [-o FILE] [--comments] [--verbose]
                     [--match {regex,wildcard,string}] [--ignore-case]
                     [--invert-match] [--files-with-matches]
                     [--count | --brief] [--stanza PATTERN]
                     [--attr-present ATTR] [--keep-attrs WC-ATTR]
                     [--reject-attrs WC-ATTR]
                     CONF [CONF ...]

Filter the contents of a conf file in various ways. Stanzas can be included or
excluded based on provided filter, based on the presents or value of a key.
Where possible, this command supports GREP-like arguments to bring a familiar
feel.

positional arguments:
  CONF                  Input conf file

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -o FILE, --output FILE
                        File where the filtered results are written. Defaults
                        to standard out.
  --comments, -C        Preserve comments. Comments are discarded by default.
  --verbose             Enable additional output.
  --match {regex,wildcard,string}, -m {regex,wildcard,string}
                        Specify pattern matching mode. Defaults to 'wildcard'
                        allowing for '*' and '?' matching. Use 'regex' for
                        more power but watch out for shell escaping. Use
                        'string' enable literal matching.
  --ignore-case, -i     Ignore case when comparing or matching strings. By
                        default matches are case-sensitive.
  --invert-match, -v    Invert match results. This can be used to show what
                        content does NOT match, or make a backup copy of
                        excluded content.

Output mode:
  Select an alternate output mode. If any of the following options are used,
  the stanza output is not shown.

  --files-with-matches, -l
                        List files that match the given search criteria
  --count, -c           Count matching stanzas
  --brief, -b           List name of matching stanzas

Stanza selection:
  Include or exclude entire stanzas using these filter options. All filter
  options can be provided multiple times. If you have a long list of
  filters, they can be saved in a file and referenced using the special
  'file://' prefix.

  --stanza PATTERN      Match any stanza who's name matches the given pattern.
                        PATTERN supports bulk patterns via the 'file://'
                        prefix.
  --attr-present ATTR   Match any stanza that includes the ATTR attribute.
                        ATTR supports bulk attribute patterns via the
                        'file://' prefix.

Attribute selection:
  Include or exclude attributes passed through. By default all attributes
  are preserved. Whitelist (keep) operations are preformed before blacklist
  (reject) operations.

  --keep-attrs WC-ATTR  Select which attribute(s) will be preserved. This
                        space separated list of attributes indicates what to
                        preserve. Supports wildcards.
  --reject-attrs WC-ATTR
                        Select which attribute(s) will be discarded. This
                        space separated list of attributes indicates what to
                        discard. Supports wildcards.

ksconf promote¶

usage: ksconf promote [-h] [--batch | --interactive] [--force] [--keep]
                      [--keep-empty]
                      SOURCE TARGET

Propagate .conf settings applied in one file to another.  Typically this is used
to take local changes made via the UI and push them into a default (or
default.d/) location.

NOTICE:  By default, changes are *MOVED*, not just copied.

Promote has two different modes:  batch and interactive.  In batch mode all
changes are applied automatically and the (now empty) source file is removed.
In interactive mode the user is prompted to pick which stanzas and keys to
integrate.  This can be used to push  changes made via the UI, which are stored
in a 'local' file, to the version-controlled 'default' file.  Note that the
normal operation moves changes from the SOURCE file to the TARGET, updating both
files in the process.  But it's also possible to preserve the local file, if
desired.

If either the source file or target file is modified while a promotion is under
progress, changes will be aborted.  And any custom selections you made will be
lost.  (This needs improvement.)

positional arguments:
  SOURCE             The source configuration file to pull changes from.
                     (Typically the 'local' conf file)
  TARGET             Configuration file or directory to push the changes into.
                     (Typically the 'default' folder) As a shortcut, a
                     directory is given, then it's assumed that the same
                     basename is used for both SOURCE and TARGET. In fact, if
                     different basename as provided, a warning is issued.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help         show this help message and exit
  --batch, -b        Use batch mode where all configuration settings are
                     automatically promoted. All changes are removed from
                     source and applied to target. The source file will be
                     removed, unless '--keep-empty' is used.
  --interactive, -i  Enable interactive mode where the user will be prompted
                     to approve the promotion of specific stanzas and keys.
                     The user will be able to apply, skip, or edit the changes
                     being promoted. (This functionality was inspired by 'git
                     add --patch').
  --force, -f        Disable safety checks.
  --keep, -k         Keep conf settings in the source file. All changes will
                     be copied into the target file instead of being moved
                     there. This is typically a bad idea since local always
                     overrides default.
  --keep-empty       Keep the source file, even if after the settings
                     promotions the file has no content. By default, SOURCE
                     will be removed after all content has been moved into
                     TARGET. Splunk will re-create any necessary local files
                     on the fly.

ksconf merge¶

usage: ksconf merge [-h] [--target FILE] [--dry-run] [--banner BANNER]
                    FILE [FILE ...]

Merge two or more .conf files into a single combined .conf file.  This could be
used to merge the props.conf file from ALL technology addons into a single file:

ksconf merge --target=all-ta-props.conf etc/apps/*TA*/{default,local}/props.conf

positional arguments:
  FILE                  The source configuration file to pull changes from.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --target FILE, -t FILE
                        Save the merged configuration files to this target
                        file. If not provided. the the merged conf is written
                        to standard output.
  --dry-run, -D         Enable dry-run mode. Instead of writing to TARGET,
                        preview changes in 'diff' format. If TARGET doesn't
                        exist, then show the merged file.
  --banner BANNER, -b BANNER
                        A banner or warning comment added to the top of the
                        TARGET file. This is often used to warn Splunk admins
                        from editing an auto-generated file.

ksconf minimize¶

usage: ksconf minimize [-h] [--target FILE] [--dry-run | --output OUTPUT]
                       [--explode-default] [-k PRESERVE_KEY]
                       FILE [FILE ...]

Minimize a conf file by removing the default settings

Reduce local conf file to only your indented changes without manually tracking
which entries you've edited.  Minimizing local conf files makes your local
customizations easier to read and often results in cleaner add-on upgrades.

A typical scenario & why does this matter:

To customizing a Splunk app or add-on, start by copying the conf file from
default to local and then applying your changes to the local file.  That's good.
But stopping here may complicated future upgrades, because the local file
doesn't contain *just* your settings, it contains all the default settings too.
Fixes published by the app creator may be masked by your local settings.  A
better approach is to reduce the local conf file leaving only the stanzas and
settings that you indented to change.  This make your conf files easier to read
and makes upgrades easier, but it's tedious to do by hand.

For special cases, the '--explode-default' mode reduces duplication between
entries normal stanzas and global/default entries.  If 'disabled = 0' is a
global default, it's technically safe to remove that setting from individual
stanzas.  But sometimes it's preferable to be explicit, and this behavior may be
too heavy-handed for general use so it's off by default.  Use this mode if your
conf file that's been fully-expanded.  (i.e., conf entries downloaded via REST,
or the output of "btool list").  This isn't perfect, since many apps push their
settings into the global namespace, but it can help.

Example usage:

    cd Splunk_TA_nix
    cp default/inputs.conf local/inputs.conf

    # Edit 'disabled' and 'interval' settings in-place
    vi local/inputs.conf

    # Remove all the extra (unmodified) bits
    ksconf minimize --target=local/inputs.conf default/inputs.conf

positional arguments:
  FILE                  The default configuration file(s) used to determine
                        what base settings are " unnecessary to keep in the
                        target file.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --target FILE, -t FILE
                        This is the local file that you with to remove the
                        duplicate settings from. By default, this file will be
                        read and the updated with a minimized version.
  --dry-run, -D         Enable dry-run mode. Instead of writing the minimizing
                        the TARGET file, preview what what be removed in the
                        form of a 'diff'.
  --output OUTPUT       Write the minimized output to a separate file instead
                        of updating TARGET. This can be use to preview changes
                        if dry-run produces a large diff. This may also be
                        helpful in other workflows.
  --explode-default, -E
                        Enable minimization across stanzas as well as files
                        for special use-cases. This mode will not only
                        minimize the same stanza across multiple config files,
                        it will also attempt to minimize default any values
                        stored in the [default] or global stanza as well.
                        Example: Trim out cruft in savedsearches.conf by
                        pointing to etc/system/default/savedsearches.conf
  -k PRESERVE_KEY, --preserve-key PRESERVE_KEY
                        Specify a key that should be allowed to be a
                        duplication but should be preserved within the
                        minimized output. For example, it may be desirable
                        keep the 'disabled' settings in the local file, even
                        if it's enabled by default.

ksconf snapshot¶

usage: ksconf snapshot [-h] [--output FILE] [--minimize] PATH [PATH ...]

Build a static snapshot of various configuration files stored within a
structured json export format. If the .conf files being captured are within a
standard Splunk directory structure, then certain metadata is assumed based on
path locations. Otherwise, less metadata is recorded. ksconf snapshot
--output=daily.json /opt/splunk/etc/app/

positional arguments:
  PATH                  Directory from which to load configuration files. All
                        .conf and .meta file are included recursively.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --output FILE, -o FILE
                        Save the snapshot to the named files. If not provided,
                        the snapshot is written to standard output.
  --minimize            Reduce the size of the JSON output by removing
                        whitespace. Reduces readability.

ksconf sort¶

usage: ksconf sort [-h] [--target FILE | --inplace] [-F] [-q] [-n LINES]
                   FILE [FILE ...]

Sort a Splunk .conf file.  Sort has two modes:  (1) by default, the sorted
config file will be echoed to the screen.  (2) the config files are updated
inplace when the '-i' option is used.

Manually managed conf files can be blacklisted by add a comment containing the
string 'KSCONF-NO-SORT' to the top of any .conf file.

To recursively sort all files:

    find . -name '*.conf' | xargs ksconf sort -i

positional arguments:
  FILE                  Input file to sort, or standard input.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --target FILE, -t FILE
                        File to write results to. Defaults to standard output.
  --inplace, -i         Replace the input file with a sorted version. Warning
                        this a potentially destructive operation that may
                        move/remove comments.
  -n LINES, --newlines LINES
                        Lines between stanzas.

In-place update arguments:
  -F, --force           Force file sorting for all files, even for files
                        containing the special 'KSCONF-NO-SORT' marker.
  -q, --quiet           Reduce the output. Reports only updated or invalid
                        files. This is useful for pre-commit hooks, for
                        example.

ksconf rest-export¶

usage: ksconf rest-export [-h] [--output FILE] [--disable-auth-output]
                          [--pretty-print] [-u | -D] [--url URL] [--app APP]
                          [--user USER] [--conf TYPE]
                          [--extra-args EXTRA_ARGS]
                          CONF [CONF ...]

Build an executable script of the stanzas in a configuration file that can be later applied to
a running Splunk instance via the Splunkd REST endpoint.

This can be helpful when pushing complex props & transforms to an instance where you only have
UI access and can't directly publish an app.

WARNING:  This command is indented for manual admin workflows.  It's quite possible that shell
escaping bugs exist that may allow full shell access if you put this into an automated workflow.
Evaluate the risks, review the code, and run as a least-privilege user, and be responsible.

For now the assumption is that 'curl' command will be used.  (Patches to support the Power Shell
Invoke-WebRequest cmdlet would be greatly welcomed!)

ksconf rest-export --output=apply_props.sh etc/app/Splunk_TA_aws/local/props.conf

positional arguments:
  CONF                  Configuration file(s) to export settings from.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --output FILE, -t FILE
                        Save the shell script output to this file. If not
                        provided, the output is written to standard output.
  -u, --update          Assume that the REST entities already exist. By
                        default output assumes stanzas are being created.
                        (This is an unfortunate quark of the configs REST API)
  -D, --delete          Remove existing REST entities. This is a destructive
                        operation. In this mode, stanzas attributes are
                        unnecessary and ignored. NOTE: This works for 'local'
                        entities only; the default folder cannot be updated.
  --url URL             URL of Splunkd. Default: https://localhost:8089
  --app APP             Set the namespace (app name) for the endpoint
  --user USER           Set the user associated. Typically the default of
                        'nobody' is ideal if you want to share the
                        configurations at the app-level.
  --conf TYPE           Explicitly set the configuration file type. By default
                        this is derived from CONF, but sometime it's helpful
                        set this explicitly. Can be any valid Splunk conf file
                        type, example include 'app', 'props', 'tags',
                        'savesdearches', and so on.
  --extra-args EXTRA_ARGS
                        Extra arguments to pass to all CURL commands. Quote
                        arguments on the commandline to prevent confusion
                        between arguments to ksconf vs curl.

Output Control:
  --disable-auth-output
                        Turn off sample login curl commands from the output.
  --pretty-print, -p    Enable pretty-printing. Make shell output a bit more
                        readable by splitting entries across lines.

ksconf unarchive¶

usage: ksconf unarchive [-h] [--dest DIR] [--app-name NAME]
                        [--default-dir DIR] [--exclude EXCLUDE] [--keep KEEP]
                        [--allow-local]
                        [--git-sanity-check {off,changed,untracked,ignored}]
                        [--git-mode {nochange,stage,commit}] [--no-edit]
                        [--git-commit-args GIT_COMMIT_ARGS]
                        SPL

Install or overwrite an existing app in a git-friendly way.
If the app already exist, steps will be taken to upgrade it safely.

The 'default' folder can be redirected to another path (i.e., 'default.d/10-upstream' or
whatever which is helpful if you're using the ksconf 'combine' mode.)

Supports tarballs (.tar.gz, .spl), and less-common zip files (.zip)

positional arguments:
  SPL                   The path to the archive to install.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --dest DIR            Set the destination path where the archive will be
                        extracted. By default the current directory is used,
                        but sane values include etc/apps, etc/deployment-apps,
                        and so on. This could also be a git repository working
                        tree where splunk apps are stored.
  --app-name NAME       The app name to use when expanding the archive. By
                        default, the app name is taken from the archive as the
                        top-level path included in the archive (by
                        convention). Expanding archives that contain multiple
                        (ITSI) or nested apps (NIX, ES) is not supported.)
  --default-dir DIR     Name of the directory where the default contents will
                        be stored. This is a useful feature for apps that use
                        a dynamic default directory that's created and managed
                        by the 'combine' mode.
  --exclude EXCLUDE, -e EXCLUDE
                        Add a file pattern to exclude. Splunk's psudo-glob
                        patterns are supported here. '*' for any non-directory
                        match, '...' for ANY (including directories), and '?'
                        for a single character.
  --keep KEEP, -k KEEP  Specify a pattern for files to preserve during an
                        upgrade. Repeat this argument to keep multiple
                        patterns.
  --allow-local         Allow local/ and local.meta files to be extracted from
                        the archive. Shipping local files is a Splunk app
                        packaging violation so local files are blocked to
                        prevent content from being overridden.
  --git-sanity-check {off,changed,untracked,ignored}
                        By default 'git status' is run on the destination
                        folder to detect working tree or index modifications
                        before the unarchive process starts, but this is
                        configurable. Sanity check choices go from least
                        restrictive to most thorough: Use 'off' to prevent any
                        'git status' safely checks. Use 'changed' to abort
                        only upon local modifications to files tracked by git.
                        Use 'untracked' (the default) to look for changed and
                        untracked files before considering the tree clean. Use
                        'ignored' to enable the most intense safety check
                        which will abort if local changes, untracked, or
                        ignored files are found. NOTE: Sanity checks are
                        automatically disabled if the app is not in a git
                        working tree, or git is not installed.
  --git-mode {nochange,stage,commit}
                        Set the desired level of git integration. The default
                        mode is 'stage', where new, updated, or removed files
                        are automatically handled for you. If 'commit' mode is
                        selected, then files are committed with an auto-
                        generated commit message. To prevent any 'git add' or
                        'git rm' commands from being run, pick the 'nochange'
                        mode. Notes: (1) The git mode is irrelevant if the app
                        is not in a git working tree. (2) If a git commit is
                        incorrect, simply roll it back with 'git reset' or fix
                        it with a 'git commit --amend' before the changes are
                        pushed anywhere else. (That's why you're using git in
                        the first place, right?)
  --no-edit             Tell git to skip opening your editor. By default you
                        will be prompted to review/edit the commit message.
                        (Git Tip: Delete the content of the message to abort
                        the commit.)
  --git-commit-args GIT_COMMIT_ARGS, -G GIT_COMMIT_ARGS

Developer setup¶

The following steps highlight the developer install process.

Setup tools¶

If you are a developer then we strongly suggest installing into a virtual environment to prevent overwriting the production version of ksconf and for the installation of the developer tools. (The virtualenv name ksconfdev-pyve is used below, but this can be whatever suites, just make sure not to commit it.)

# Setup and activate virtual environment
virtualenv ksconfdev-pyve
. ksconfdev-pyve/bin/activate

# Install developer packages
pip install -r requirements-dev.txt

Install ksconf¶

git clone https://github.com/Kintyre/ksconf.git
cd ksconf
pip install .

Building the docs¶

cd ksconf
. ksconfdev-pyve/bin/activate

cd docs
make html
open build/html/index.html

If you’d like to build PDF, then you’ll need some extra tools. On Mac, you may also want to install the following (for building docs, and the like):

brew install homebrew/cask/mactex-no-gui

(Doh! Still doesn’t work, instructions are incomplete for mac latex, ….)

Contributing¶

Pull requests are greatly welcome! If you plan on contributing code back to the main ksconf repo, please follow the standard GitHub fork and pull-request work-flow. We also ask that you enable a set of git hooks to help safeguard against avoidable issues.

Pre-commit hook¶

The ksconf project uses the pre-commit hook to enable the following checks:

Fixes trailing whitespace, EOF, and EOLs
Confirms python code compiles (AST)
Blocks the committing of large files and keys
Rebuilds the CLI docs. (Eventually to be replaced with an argparse Sphinx extension)
Confirms that all Unit test pass. (Currently this is the same tests also run by Travis CI, but since test complete in under 5 seconds, the run-everywhere approach seems appropriate for now. Eventually, the local testing will likely become a subset of the full test suite.)

Note that this repo both uses pre-commit for it’s own validation (as discussed here) and provides a pre-commit hook service to other repos. This way repositories housing Splunk apps can, for example, use ksconf --check or ksconf --sort against their own .conf files for validation purposes.

Installing the pre-commit hook¶

To run ensure you changes comply with the ksconf coding standards, please install and activate pre-commit.

Install:

sudo pip install pre-commit

# Register the pre-commit hooks (one time setup) 
cd ksconf
pre-commit install --install-hooks

Install gitlint¶

Gitlint will check to ensure that commit messages are in compliance with the standard subject, empty-line, body format. You can enable it with:

gitlint install-hook

Refresh module listing¶

After making changes to the module hierarchy or simply adding new commands, refresh the listing for the autodoc extension by running the following command. Note that this may not remove old packages.

sphinx-apidoc -o docs/source/ ksconf --force

Changelog¶

Changes in master, but not released yet are in the DRAFT section.

Ksconf 0.6.x¶

Add deployment as a Splunk app for simplicity and significant docs cleanup.

Release v0.6.0 (2019-02-06)¶

Add initial support for building ksconf into a Splunk app.
- App contains a local copy of the docs, helpful for anyone who’s working offline.
- Credit to Sarah Larson for the ksconf logos.
- No ksconf functionality exposed to the Splunk UI at the moment.
Docs/Sphinx improvements (more comming)
- Begin work on cleaning up API docs.
- Started converting various document pages into reStructuredText for greatly improved docs.
- Improved PDF fonts and fixed a bunch of sphinx errors/warnings.
Refactored the install docs into 2 parts. With the new ability to install ksconf as a Splunk app it’s quite likely that most of the wonky corner cases will be less frequently needed, hence all the more exotic content was moved into the “Advanced Install Guide”, tidying things up.

Ksconf 0.5.x¶

Add Python 3 support, new commands, support for external command plugins, tox and vagrant for testing.

Release v0.5.6 (2019-02-04)¶

Fixes and improvements to the filter command. Found issue with processing from stdin, inconsistency in some CLI arguments, and finished implementation for various output modes.
Add logo (fist attempt).

Release v0.5.5 (2019-01-28)¶

New filter command added for slicing up a conf file into smaller pieces. Think of this as GREP that’s stanza-aware. Can also whitelist or blacklist attributes, if desirable.
Expanded rest-export CLI capabilities to include a new ‘–delete’ option, pretty-printing, and now supports stdin by allowing the user to explicitly set the file type using ‘–conf’.
Refactored all CLI unittests for increased readability and long-term maintenance. Unit tests now can also be run individually as scripts from the command line.
Minor tweaks to the snapshot output format, v0.2. This feature is still highly experimental.

Release v0.5.4 (2019-01-04)¶

New commands added:
- snapshot will dump a set of configuration files to a JSON formatted file. This can be used used for incremental “snapshotting” of running Splunk apps to track changes overtime.
- rest-export builds a series of custom curl commands that can be used to publish or update stanzas on a remote instance without file system access. This can be helpful when pushing configs to Splunk Cloud when all you have is REST (splunkd) access. This command is indented for interactive admin not batch operations.
Added the concept of command maturity. A listing is available by running ksconf --version
Fix typo in KSCONF_DEBUG.
Resolving some build issues.
Improved support for development/testing environments using Vagrant (fixes) and Docker (new). Thanks to Lars Jonsson for these enhancements.

Release v0.5.3 (2018-11-02)¶

Fixed bug where ksconf combine could incorrectly order directories on certain file systems (like ext4), effectively ignoring priorities. Repeated runs may resulted in undefined behavior. Solved by explicitly sorting input paths forcing processing to be done in lexicographical order.
Fixed more issues with handling files with BOM encodings. BOMs and encodings in general are NOT preserved by ksconf. If this is an issue for you, please add an enhancement issue.
Add Python 3.7 support
Expand install docs specifically for offline mode and some OS-specific notes.
Enable additional tracebacks for CLI debugging by setting KSCONF_DEBUG=1 in the environment.

Release v0.5.2 (2018-08-13)¶

Expand CLI output for --help and --version
Internal cleanup of CLI entry point module name. Now the ksconf CLI can be invoked as python -m ksconf, you know, for anyone who’s into that sort of thing.
Minor docs and CI/testing improvements.

Release v0.5.1 (2018-06-28)¶

Support external ksconf command plugins through custom ‘entry_points’, allowing for others to develop their own custom extensions as needed.
Many internal changes: Refactoring of all CLI commands to use new entry_points as well as pave the way for future CLI unittest improvements.
Docs cleanup / improvements.

Release v0.5.0 (2018-06-26)¶

Python 3 support.
Many bug fixes and improvements resulting from wider testing.

Ksconf 0.4.x¶

Ksconf 0.4.x switched to a modular code base, added build/release automation, PyPI package registration (installation via pip install and, online docs.

Release v0.4.10 (2018-06-26)¶

Improve file handling to avoid “unclosed file” warnings. Impacted parse_conf(), write_conf(), and many unittest helpers.
Update badges to report on the master branch only. (No need to highlight failures on feature or bug-fix branches.)

Release v0.4.9 (2018-06-05)¶

Add some missing docs files

Release v0.4.8 (2018-06-05)¶

Massive cleanup of docs: revamped install guide, added ‘standalone’ install procedure and developer-focused docs. Updated license handling.
Updated docs configuration to dynamically pull in the ksconf version number.
Using the classic ‘read-the-docs’ Sphinx theme.
Added additional PyPi badges to README (GitHub home page).

Release v0.4.4-v0.4.1 (2018-06-04)¶

Deployment and install fixes (It’s difficult to troubleshoot/test without making a new release!)

Release v0.4.3 (2018-06-04)¶

Rename PyPI package kintyre-splunk-conf
Add support for building a standalone executable (zipapp).
Revamp install docs and location
Add GitHub release for the standalone executable.

Release v0.4.2 (2018-06-04)¶

Add readthedocs.io support

Release v0.4.1 (2018-06-04)¶

Enable PyPI production package building

Release v0.4.0 (2018-05-19)¶

Refactor entire code base. Switched from monolithic all-in-one file to clean-cut modules.
Versioning is now discoverable via ksconf --version, and controlled via git tags (via git describe --tags).

Module layout¶

ksconf.conf.* - Configuration file parsing, writing, comparing, and so on
ksconf.util.* - Various helper functions
ksconf.archive - Support for uncompressing Splunk apps (tgz/zip files)
ksconf.vc.git - Version control support. Git is the only VC tool supported for now. (Possibly ever)
ksconf.commands.<CMD> - Modules for specific CLI functions. I may make this extendable, eventually.

Ksconf 0.3.x¶

First public releases.

Release v0.3.2 (2018-04-24)¶

Add AppVeyor for Windows platform testing
Add codecov integration
Created ConfFileProxy.dump()

Release v0.3.1 (2018-04-21)¶

Setup automation via Travis CI
Add code coverage

Release v0.3.0 (2018-04-21)¶

Switched to semantic versioning.
0.3.0 feels representative of the code maturity.

Ksconf legacy releases¶

Ksconf started in a private Kintyre repo. There are no official releases; all git history has been rewritten.

Release legacy-v1.0.1 (2018-04-20)¶

Fixes to blacklist support and many enhancements to ksconf unarchive.
Introduces parsing profiles.
Lots of bug fixes to various subcommands.
Added automatic detection of ‘subcommands’ for CLI documentation helper script.

Release legacy-v1.0.0 (2018-04-16)¶

This is the first public release. First work began Nov 2017 (as a simple conf ‘sort’ tool, which was imported from yet another repo.) Version history was extracted/rewritten/preserved as much as possible.
Mostly stable features.
Unit test coverage over 85%
Includes pre-commit hook configuration (so that other repos can use this to run ksconf sort and ksconf check against their conf files.

Known issues¶

File encoding issues:
Byte order markers and specific encodings are NOT preserved. All file will be writen out as UTF-8, by default.

See more confirmed bugs in the issue tracker.

License¶

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Advanced Installation Guide¶

The content in this document was split out from the Install Guide because it became unruly and the number of possible Python installation combinations and gotchas became very intense. However, that means that there’s lots of truly helpful stuff in here, but becoming a python packaging expert isn’t my goal, so the Splunk app install approach was introduced to alleviate much of this pain.

A portion of this document is targeted at those who can’t install packages as Admin or are forced to use Splunk’s embedded Python. For everyone else, please start with the one-liner!

Note

Who should use this doc?

So if you can’t easily get ksconf installed as a python package, and you have reason to avoid installing it as a Splunk app, then keep reading, and good luck.

Flowchart¶

(Unfinished; more of a brainstorm at this point…)

Is Python installed? (OS level) - Is the version greater than 2.7? (Some early 2.7 version have quarks, but typically this is okay) - If Python 3.x, is it greater than 3.4? (I’d like to drop 3.4, but lots of old distros still have it.)
Do you have admin access? (root/Administrator; or can you get it? How hard? Will you need it each time you upgrade the ksconf?)
Do you already have a large python deployment or dependency? (If so, you’ll probably be fine. Use virtualenv)
Do you have any prior Python packaging or administration experience?
Are you dealing with some vendor-specific solution?
- Example: RedHat Software Collections – where they realize there software is way too old, so they try to make it possible to install newever version of things like Python, but since they aren’t native or the default, you still end up jumping through a bunch of wonky hoops)
Do you have Internet connectivity? (air gap or blocked outbound traffic, or proxy)
Do you want to build/deploy your own ksconf extensions? If so, the python package is a better option. (But at that point, you can probably already handle any packaging issues yourself.)

Installation¶

There are several ways to install ksconf. Technically all standard python packaging approaches should work just fine, there’s no compiled code or external run-time dependencies so installation is fairly easy, but for non-python developers there are some gotchas. Installation options are listed from the most easy and recommended to more obscure and difficult:

Install from PyPI with PIP¶

The preferred installation method is to install via the standard Python package tool pip. Ksconf can be installed via the registered kintyre-splunk-conf package using the standard python process.

There are 2 popular variations, depending on whether or not you would like to install for all users or just play around with it locally.

Install ksconf into a virtual environment¶

Use this option if you don’t have admin access

Installing ksconf with virtualenv is a great way to test the tool without requiring admin privileges and has many advantages for a production install too. Here are the basic steps to get started.

Please change venv to a suitable path for your environment.

# Install Python virtualenv package (if not already installed)
pip install virtualenv

# Create and activte new 'venv' virtual environment
virtualenv venv
source venv/bin/activate

pip install kintyre-splunk-conf

Install ksconf system-wide¶

Important

This requires admin access.

This is the absolute easiest install method where ‘ksconf’ is available to all users on the system but it requires root access and pip must be installed and up-to-date.

On Mac or Linux, run:

sudo pip install kintyre-splunk-conf

On Windows, run this commands from an Administrator console.

pip install kintyre-splunk-conf

CentOS (RedHat derived) distros¶

# Enable the EPEL repo so that `pip` can be installed.
sudo yum install -y epel-release

# Install pip
sudo yum install -y python-pip

# Install ksconf (globally, for all users)
sudo pip install kintyre-splunk-conf

RedHat Software Collections¶

The following assumes the python27 software collection, but other version of Python are supported too. The initial setup and deployment of Software Collections is beyond the scope of this doc.

sudo scl enable python27 python -m pip install kintyre-splunk-conf

Hint

Missing pip?

If pip is missing from a RHSC then install the following rpm.

yum install python27-python-pip

Unfortunately, the ksconf entrypoint script (in the bin folder) will not work correctly on it’s own because it doesn’t know about the scl environment, nor is it in the default PATH. To solve this run the following:

sudo cat > /usr/local/bin/ksconf <<HERE
#!/bin/sh
source scl_source enable python27
exec /opt/rh/python27/root/usr/bin/ksconf "$@"
HERE
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/ksconf

Use the standalone executable¶

Deprecated since version 0.6.0: This option remains for historical reference and will like be disabled in the future. If this seems like the best option to you, then please consider install the KSCONF App for Splunk instead.

Ksconf can be installed as a standalone executable zip app. This approach still requires a python interpreter to be present either from the OS or the one embedded with Splunk Enterprise. This works well for testing or when all other options fail.

From the GitHub releases page, grab the file name ksconf-*.pyz, download it, copy it to a bin folder in your PATH and rename it ksconf. The default shebang looks for ‘python’ in the PATH, but this can be adjusted as needed. Since installing with Splunk is a common use case, a second file named ksconf-*-splunk.pyz already has the shebang set for the standard /opt/splunk install path.

Typical embedded Splunk install example:

VER=0.5.0
curl https://github.com/Kintyre/ksconf/releases/download/v${VER}/ksconf-${VER}-splunk.pyz
mv ksconf-${VER}-splunk.pyz /opt/splunk/bin/
cd /opt/splunk/bin
ln -sf ksconf-${VER}-splunk.pyz ksconf
chmod +x ksconf
ksconf --version

Reasons why this is a non-ideal install approach:

Lower performance since all python files live in a zip file, and precompiled version’s can be cached.
No standard install pathway (doesn’t use pip); user must manually copy the executable into place.
Uses a non-standard build process. (May not be a big deal, but could cause things to break in the future.)

Install the Wheel manually (offline mode)¶

Download the latest “Wheel” file file from PyPI, copy it to the destination server and install with pip.

Offline pip install:

pip install ~/Downloads/kintyre-splunk-conf-0.4.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl

Install with Splunk’s Python¶

Deprecated since version 0.6.0: Don’t do this anymore. Please use the KSCONF App for Splunk instead.

Splunk Enterprise 6.x and later installs an embedded Python 2.7 environment. However, Splunk does not provide packing tools (such as pip or the distutils standard library which is required to bootstrap install pip). For these reasons, it’s typically easier and cleaner to install ksconf with the system provided Python. However, sometimes the system-provided Python environment is the wrong version, is missing (like on Windows), or security restrictions prevent the installation of additional packages. In such cases, Splunk’s embedded Python becomes a beacon of hope.

On Linux or Mac¶

Download the latest “Wheel” file file from PyPI. The path to this download will be set in the pkg variable as shown below.

Setup the shell:

export SPLUNK_HOME=/opt/splunk
export pkg=~/Downloads/kintyre_splunk_conf-0.4.9-py2.py3-none-any.whl

Run the following:

cd $SPLUNK_HOME
mkdir Kintyre
cd Kintyre
# Unzip the 'kconf' folder into SPLUNK_HOME/Kintyre
unzip "$pkg"

cat > $SPLUNK_HOME/bin/ksconf <<HERE
#!/bin/sh
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:$SPLUNK_HOME/Kintyre
exec $SPLUNK_HOME/bin/python -m ksconf \$*
HERE
chmod +x $SPLUNK_HOME/bin/ksconf

Test the install:

ksconf --version

On Windows¶

Open a browser and download the latest “Wheel” file file from PyPI.
Rename the .whl extension to .zip. (This may require showing file extensions in Explorer.)
Extract the zip file to a temporary folder. (This should create a folder named “ksconf”)
Create a new folder called “Kintyre” under the Splunk installation path (aka SPLUNK_HOME) By default this is C:\Program Files\Splunk.
Copy the “ksconf” folder to %SPLUNK_HOME%\Kintyre.
Create a new batch file called ksconf.bat and paste in the following. Be sure to adjust for a non-standard %SPLUNK_HOME% value, if necessary.

@echo off
SET SPLUNK_HOME=C:\Program Files\Splunk
SET PYTHONPATH=%SPLUNK_HOME%\bin;%SPLUNK_HOME%\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\win32;%SPLUNK_HOME%\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages;%SPLUNK_HOME%\Python-2.7\Lib
SET PYTHONPATH=%PYTHONPATH%;%SPLUNK_HOME%\Kintyre
CALL "%SPLUNK_HOME%\bin\python.exe" -m ksconf %*

Move ksconf.bat to the Splunk\bin folder. (This assumes that %SPLUNK_HOME%/bin is part of your %PATH%. If not, add it, or find an appropriate install location.)
Test this by running ksconf --version from the command line.

Validate the install¶

Confirm installation with the following command:

ksconf --help

If this works, it means that ksconf installed and is part of your PATH and should be useable everywhere in your system. Go forth and conquer!

Offline installation¶

Installing ksconf to an offline or network restricted computer requires three steps: (1) download the latest packages from the Internet to a staging location, (2) transfer the staged content (often as a zip file) to the restricted host, and (3) use pip to install packages from the staged copy. Fortunately, pip makes offline workflows quite easy to achieve. Pip can download a python package with all dependencies stored as wheels files into a single directory, and pip can be told to install from that directory instead of attempting to talk to the Internet.

The process of transferring these files is very organization-specific. The example below shows the creation of a tarball (since tar is universally available on Unix systems), but any acceptable method is fine. If security is a high concern, this step is frequently where safety checks are implemented. For example, antivirus scans, static code analysis, manual inspection, and/or comparison of cryptographic file hashes.

One additional use-case for this workflow is to ensure the exact same version of all packages are deployed consistently across all servers and environments. Often building a requirements.txt file with pip freeze is a more appropriate solution. Or consider using pipenv lock for even more security benefits.

Offline installation steps¶

Important

Pip must be installed on the destination server for this process to work. If pip is NOT installed see the Offline installation of pip section below.

Step 1: Use pip to download the latest package and their dependencies. Be sure to use the same version of python that is running on destination machine

# download packages
python2.7 -m pip download -d ksconf-packages kintyre-splunk-conf

A new directory named ‘ksconf-packages’ will be created and will contain the necessary *.whl files.

Step 2: Transfer the directory or archive to the remote computer. Insert whatever security and file copy procedures necessary for your organization.

# Compress directory (on staging computer)
tar -czvf ksconf-packages.tgz ksconf-packages

# Copy file using whatever means
scp ksconf-packages.tgz user@server:/tmp/ksconf-packages.tgz

# Extract the archive (on destination server)
tar -xzvf ksconf-packages.tgz

Step 3:

# Install ksconf package with pip
pip install --no-index --find-links=ksconf-packages kntyre-splunk-conf

# Test the installation
ksconf --version

The ksconf-packages folder can now safely be removed.

Offline installation of pip¶

Use the recommended pip install procedures listed elsewhere if possible. But if a remote bootstrap of pip is your only option, then here are the steps. (This process mirrors the steps above and can be combined, if needed.)

Step 1: Fetch bootstrap script and necessary wheels

mkdir ksconf-packages
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o ksconf-packages/get-pip.py
python2.7 -m pip download -d /tmp/my_packages pip setuptools wheel

The ksconf-pacakges folder should contain 1 script, and 3 wheel (*.whl) files.

Step 2: Archive and/or copy to offline server

Step 3: Bootstrap pip

sudo python get-pip.py --no-index --find-links=ksconf-packages/

# Test with
pip --version

Use pip without installing it¶

If you have a copy of the pip*.whl (wheel) file, then it can be executed directly by python. This can be used to run pip without actually installing it, or for install pip initially (bypassing the get-pip.py script step noted above.)

Here’s an example of how this could work:

Step 1: Download the pip wheel on a machine where pip works, by running:

pip download pip -d .

This will create a file like pip-19.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl in the current working directory.

Step 2: Copy the pip wheel to another machine (likely where pip isn’t installed.)

Step 3: Execute the wheel by running:

python pip-19.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl/pip list

Just substitute the list command with whatever action you need (like install or whatever)

Frequent gotchas¶

PIP Install TLS Error¶

If pip throws an error message like the following:

There was a problem confirming the ssl certificate: [SSL: TLSV1_ALERT_PROTOCOL_VERSION] tlsv1 alert protocol version
...
No matching distribution found for setuptools

The problem is likely caused by changes to PyPI website in April 2018 when support for TLS v1.0 and 1.1 were removed. Downloading new packages requires upgrading to a new version of pip. Like so:

Upgrade pip as follows:

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python

Note: Use sudo python above if not in a virtual environment.

Helpful links:

No module named ‘command.install’¶

If, while trying to install pip or run a pip command you see the following error:

ImportError: No module named command.install

Likely this is because you are using a crippled version of Python; like the one that ships with Splunk. This won’t work. Either get a pre-package version (the .pyz file or install using the OS-level Python.

Resources¶

Python packaging docs provide a general overview on installing Python packages, how to install per-user vs install system-wide.
Install PIP docs explain how to bootstrap or upgrade pip the Python packaging tool. Recent versions of Python come with this by default, but releases before Python 2.7.9 do not.

Git tips & tricks¶

Git configuration tweaks¶

Ksconf as exteral difftool¶

Setup ksconf as an external difftool provider for git. Edit ~/.gitconfig and add the following entires:

[difftool "ksconf"]
    cmd = "ksconf --force-color diff \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\" | less -R"
[difftool]
    prompt = false
[alias]
    ksdiff = "difftool --tool=ksconf"

Now you can run this new git alias to compare files in your directory using the ksconf diff feature instead of the default textual diff that git provides.

git ksdiff props.conf

Stanza aware textual diffs¶

Make git diff show the ‘stanza’ on the @@ output lines.

Note

How does git know that?

Ever wonder how git diff is able to show you the name of the function or method where changes were made? This works for many programming languages out of the box. If you’ve ever spend much time looking at diffs that additional context is invaluable. As it turns out, this is customizable by adding a stanza matching regular expression with a file pattern match.

Simply add the following settings to your git configuration:

[diff "conf"]
    xfuncname = "^(\\[.*\\])$"

Then register this new ability with specific file patterns using git’s attributes feature. Edit ~/.config/git/attributes and add:

*.conf diff=conf
*.meta diff=conf

Note

Didn’t work as expected?

Be aware that your location for your global-level attributes may be in a different location. In any case, you can use the following commands to test if the settings have been applied correctly.

git check-attr -a -- *.conf

Test to make sure the xfuncname attribute was set as expected:

git config diff.conf.xfuncname

Grandfather Paradox¶

The KSCONF Splunk app breaks it’s designed paradigm (not in a good way). Ksconf was designed to be the thing that manages all your other apps, so by deploying ksconf as an app itself, we open up the possiblity that ksconf could upgrade it self or deploy itself, or manage itself. Basically it could cut off the limb that it’s standing on. So practically this can get messy, especially if you’re on Windows where file locking is also likely to cause issues for you.

So sure, if you want to be picky, “Grandfather paradox” is probably the wrong annalogy. Pull requests welcome.