Nutanix Calm & Splunk

This Nutanix Calm blueprint will deploy a Splunk monolithic instance in a VM. The intention of this BP is to show the how Monolithic Splunk can be deployed in no time using Calm.

Mandatory Requirements Section

This section should be included in all Nutanix Calm blueprints committed to this repository. For demo or sample blueprints that are not designed to be used in production or "real" environments, high-level information only is required.

• Created on Prism Central 5.8.2.

• Minimum hardware requirements: edit the blueprint to specify the minimum vCPU, memory and disk requirements before publishing. They are marked as runtime too to enable end users to override if needed

• Base disk image required: CentOS Linux 7 with Cloud-Init package preinstalled - Download the CentOS 7 Image from here

• Variables:

  • SERVER_NAME
  • INSTANCE_PUBLIC_KEY
  • SPLUNK_ADMIN_PASSWORD
  • SPLUNK_LICENSE

• Credentials: Your SSH private key - Tested on AHV only but should work the same way on any platform that supports CentOS Linux 7 VMs

• Minimum No of VMs required: 1

• Actions: None

• License information: 60 Days free trial included.

• Network information: Nutanix environment will require Internet connection for package downloads

• Disks information: 1x SCSI disk per VM.

Important Note

The best-practice configuration mentioned through this readme WILL NOT be suitable for every environment!

As such, there is no warranty or guarantee offered alongside any configuration deployed as a result of deploying this blueprint.

Always make sure you check the scripts and configuration before using open-source blueprints in a production environment.

Components

• Splunk

Prerequisites

To deploy this blueprint you will need the following things available.

• A CentOS 7 Linux VM image, published via the Nutanix Image Service - SSH public and private key credentials for your image (note that this blueprint does not natively use username and password authentication)

Configuration

The Splunk server in this blueprint has been configured based on a number of best practice recommendations. The package install scripts takes care of implementing these best practices at the OS level:

• Disable THP in the VM once it comes up
• Set the file descriptors to 65535
• Set the hostname to the SERVER_NAME specified as input (runtime variable)

The BP then downloads the Splunk 7.1.2 community edition posted on the Splunk website that comes with a 60-day evaluation license. It installs Splunk in /opt folder from this binary and sets up the initial admin password as the ADMIN_PASSWORD entered by the user (runtime variable). It starts the Splunk server (silent install) with the right folder/user permissions

Note: If you need to choose a different Splunk version, you need to change the blueprint. You can also look at parameterizing the Splunk version in the blueprint if needed

Splunk instance

Once the app launch is successful, you can access splunk instance at http://:8000. You can login as admin and the password you specified under ADMIN_PASSWORD runtime variable

Usage

• Import the blueprint into your Nutanix Calm environment - Adjust credentials to suit your requirements (the import will warn about blueprint validation errors, since credentials are not saved in exported blueprints) - Alter the Nginx service so that it deploys your CentOS 7 image - Launch the blueprint - Fill in all required runtime variables, paying particular attention to the credentials section

Support

These blueprints are unofficial and are not supported or maintained by Nutanix in any way.

In addition, please also be advised that these blueprints may deploy applications that do not follow best practices. Please check through each blueprint to ensure the configuration suits your requirements.

Video

Click here

Changes will be required before these application blueprints can be used in production environments.