The structure of a Splunk configuration file

The .conf files used by Splunk look very similar to .ini files. A simple configuration looks like this:

#settings for foo 
[foo] 
bar=1 
la = 2 

Let's look at the following couple of definitions:

• stanza: A stanza is used to group attributes. Our stanza in this example is [foo]. A common synonym for this is section. Keep in mind the following key points:
  • A stanza name must be unique in a single file
  • The order does not matter
• attribute: An attribute is a name-value pair. Our attributes in this example are bar and la. A common synonym is parameter. Keep in mind the following key points:
  • The attribute name must not contain whitespace or the equals sign.
  • Each attribute belongs to the stanza defined previously; if the attribute appears before all stanzas, the attribute belongs to the stanza [default].
  • The attribute name must be unique in a single stanza but not in a configuration.
  • Each attribute must have its own line and can only use one line. Spaces around...