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Security Operations · Foundational

Sourcetype

A Splunk field that identifies the format of data, determining how it is parsed and how fields are extracted.

Definition

Sourcetypes control line breaking, timestamp recognition and field extractions. Splunk assigns them automatically or via inputs.conf, and add-ons define them for common technologies. Along with host, source and index, sourcetype is a default field on every event.

Example

sourcetype=WinEventLog:Security or sourcetype=pan:traffic

Exam tip

Default fields on every Splunk event: host, source, sourcetype, index, _time.

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