SPLK-1003 Practice Test

Scroll down to the section Titled, How to configure forwarder inputs, and subsection Here are the main ways that you can configure data inputs on a forwarder Install the app or addon that contains the inputs you wants.

Explanation: The correct answer is C. MonitorNoHandle.
MonitorNoHandle is a type of input stanza that allows a Splunk forwarder to read files on Windows systems as Windows writes to them. It does this by using a kernel-mode filter driver to capture raw data as it gets written to the file1.This input stanza is useful for files that get locked open for writing, such as the Windows DNS server log file2.
The other options are incorrect because:
A. Tail Reader is not a valid input stanza in Splunk. It is a component of the Tailing Processor, which is responsible for monitoring files and directories for new data3.
B. Upload is a type of input stanza that allows Splunk to index a single file from a local or network file system. It is not suitable for files that are constantly being updated, as it only indexes the file once and does not monitor it for changes4.
D. Monitor is a type of input stanza that allows Splunk to monitor files and directories for new data. However, it may not work for files that Windows prevents Splunk from reading while they are open. In such cases, MonitorNoHandle is a better option2.
A Splunk forwarder is a lightweight agent that can forward data to a Splunk deployment. There are two types of forwarders: universal and heavy. A universal forwarder can only forward data, while a heavy forwarder can also perform parsing, filtering, routing, and aggregation on the data before forwarding it5.
An input stanza is a section in the inputs.conf configuration file that defines the settings for a specific type of input, such as files, directories, network ports, scripts, or Windows event logs. An input stanza starts with a square bracket, followed by the input type and the input path or name. For example, [monitor:///var/log] is an input stanza for monitoring the /var/log directory.

"The data pipeline segments in depth. INPUT - In the input segment, Splunk software consumes data. It acquires the raw data stream from its source, breaks it into 64K blocks, and annotates each block with some metadata keys. The keys can also include values that are used internally, such as the character encoding of the data stream, and values that control later processing of the data, such as the index into which the events should be stored. PARSING Annotating individual events with metadata copied from the source-wide keys. Transforming event data and metadata according to regex transform rules."

Explanation: The following items in the phases below are listed in the order Splunk applies them (ie LINE_BREAKER occurs before TRUNCATE).
Input phase
inputs.conf
props.conf
CHARSET
NO_BINARY_CHECK
CHECK_METHOD
CHECK_FOR_HEADER (deprecated)
PREFIX_SOURCETYPE
sourcetype
wmi.conf
regmon-filters.conf
Structured parsing phase
props.conf
INDEXED_EXTRACTIONS, and all other structured data header extractions
Parsing phase
props.conf
LINE_BREAKER, TRUNCATE, SHOULD_LINEMERGE, BREAK_ONLY_BEFORE_DATE,
and all other line merging settings
TIME_PREFIX, TIME_FORMAT, DATETIME_CONFIG (datetime.xml), TZ, and all other
time extraction settings and rules
TRANSFORMS which includes per-event queue filtering, per-event index assignment, perevent routing
SEDCMD
MORE_THAN, LESS_THAN
transforms.conf
stanzas referenced by a TRANSFORMS clause in props.conf
LOOKAHEAD, DEST_KEY, WRITE_META, DEFAULT_VALUE, REPEAT_MATCH