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Log Collection Architecture

Logging Architecture

The following diagram shows a basic logging architecture to get data from the OPNsense firewall to Splunk. For more information on installation see Where to install.

Syslog Server Considerations

It is recommended to use an intermediate syslog server with a Splunk Universal Forwarder installed. This allows for reliable and secure data collection in Splunk. For more information on syslog and Splunk, see the (SYSLOG) Syslog Data Collection section of the Splunk Validated Architectures white paper.

If you want to simply your deployment you can choose to send syslog data directly to Splunk. For more information on collecting data from TCP/UDP ports see Splunk Docs: Get data from TCP and UDP ports.

This documentation will provide steps on configuring inputs from data being collected by a syslog server. See the Guide: Syslog for onboarding data via rsyslog/syslog-ng in this documentation.

Single instance deployment

When you install this add-on to a single Splunk Enterprise instance, that instance serves as both search head and indexer and provides both search and storage capability. A single instance deployment can support a few users running concurrent searches, which is ideal for a small test environment.

Distributed deployment

Distributed deployments consist of separate instances for indexers and search heads. In both single instance and distributed deployments using a universal forwarder to get data in is recommended.


Last update: September 26, 2022