Splunk® Enterprise

Securing Splunk Enterprise

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Configure a Splunk password policy in Authentication.conf

Edit authentication.conf to create a password policy for your Splunk software users. Password policies set standards and minimum requirements for complexity. The policy you create applies to Splunk Enterprise native authentication. This policy does not apply to SAML or LDAP passwords.

To configure a password policy for Splunk software users, edit the following settings in the [splunk_auth] stanza in authentication.conf.

minPasswordLength = <positive integer>
minPasswordUppercase = <positive integer>
minPasswordLowercase = <positive integer>
minPasswordSpecial = <positive integer>
minPasswordDigit = <positive integer>
expirePasswordDays = <positive integer>
expireAlertDays = <positive integer>
expireUserAccounts = <boolean>
forceWeakPasswordChange = <boolean>
lockoutUsers = <boolean>
lockoutMins = <positive integer>
lockoutAttempts = <positive integer>
lockoutThresholdMins = <positive integer>
enablePasswordHistory = <positive integer>
passwordHistoryCount = <positive integer>

The following table describes the details of each setting:

Setting Description Recommended value Default value
minPasswordLength Specify the minimum ASCII-based alphanumeric or special characters required when a user creates a new password. Splunk Enterprise supports values between 1 and 256 characters. At least 8 characters 8 characters
minPasswordUppercase The number of uppercase letters required for user passwords. At least one uppercase letter Zero uppercase characters
minPasswordLowercase The number of lowercase letters required for user passwords. At least one lowercase letter Zero lowercase characters
minPasswordSpecial The number of special characters required for user passwords. When this setting is populated, a user can enter any special character except a semicolon. At least one special character Zero special characters
minPasswordDigit The number of numeric characters required for user passwords. Value can be 0 through the length of the password. The total allowed length of the password is 256. Do not create a password comprised of only number. At least one number Zero numbers
expirePasswordDays The number of days before the password expires. Allowed values are 0 to 3650 days. 90 days 90 days
expireAlertDays The number of days in advance of password expiration that Splunk software issues user alerts. Allowed values are 0 to 120 days. 15 days 15 days
expireUserAccounts Set to true to enable password expiration. True False
forceWeakPasswordChange Set to true to force users to change a weak password the next time they log in. True False
lockoutUsers Specifies whether the system locks users out after a number of failed login attempts. When this setting is enabled, user lockout is local to each search head peer in a search cluster configuration and is not replicated to other peers. True True
lockoutMins The number of minutes that a user must wait before attempting to log in again after a lockout. The user is locked out after entering an incorrect password more times than specified in the lockoutAttempts value in the lockoutThresholdMins setting. Supported values are 1 - 1440 minutes.

When this setting is enabled on members of a search head cluster, user lockout is applied to individual members, not the entire cluster.

At least 30 minutes 30 minutes
lockoutAttempts The number of unsuccessful logins a user can attempt before they are locked out. The unsuccessful login attempts must occur within lockoutThresholdMins minutes. Supported values are 1 - 64 login attempts.

When enabled on members of a search head cluster, user lockout is applied to the single search head peer, the rest of the cluster is unaffected.

At least 5 attempts 5 attempts
lockoutThresholdMins The number of minutes that must pass from the time of the first failed login before the failed login attempt counter resets. Supported values are 1 - 120 minutes.


At least 5 minutes 5 minutes.
enablePasswordHistory Set to true to keep a user's password history. If you disable this value and and enable it later, previously saved password history is preserved. Delete $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/opasswd to remove the password history. True False
passwordHistoryCount The number of passwords that are stored in history. If you enable password history and provide a number such as 25, then the user is not able to reuse their previous 25 passwords. Supported values are 1 - 128 stored passwords. 24 stored passwords 24 stored passwords
Last modified on 07 August, 2019
Configure Splunk password policies
Password best practices for users


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