If they want to parse JSON automatically, the sender agent/mechanism must send full formed JSON events. Review the event with them...its not JSON. its JSON in an unstructured log line. In fact, this looks like some json thru syslog adventure. yum! <12>Nov 12 20:15:12 localhost whatever: data={"a":"b","c":"d"} The easiest way in syslog is to send kvpairs in the log events instead of json, like foo=bar bar=baz, <12>Nov 12 20:15:12 localhost whatever: a=b c=d then splunk can just pick out all the kv pairs automagically, instead of having to parse json to do the same thing. Many apps have this option in their logger. might get lucky. JSON provides no value here if we have to live with whatever pipeline is sending this syslog filled with json stuff. If the app cant change its format, or the ingestion path cant be reviewed, then the next option is surgery on the inbound event, where Splunk config is used to parse out the syslog facility, timestamp (which doesnt even have the year or precision timestamp) the host into indexed fields, then remove this part of the event: <12>Nov 12 20:15:12 localhost whatever: data= so all thats left when splunk indexes the _raw event is: {"a":"b","c":"d"} Which will allow kv_mode=json to do its thing. you never should go straight to indexed_extractions=json. See this awesome conf talk on the power of splunk ingest_eval https://conf.splunk.com/files/2020/slides/PLA1154C.pdf Then these examples on github from the con talk https://github.com/silkyrich/ingest_eval_examples/blob/master/default/props.conf https://github.com/silkyrich/ingest_eval_examples/blob/master/default/transforms.conf or look into splunk edge processor or ingest processor if you are a cloud customer. Options after that, are reviewing the ingestion process and move away from syslog to more modern collection to get better data like iso timestamps with timezone, etc. but whatever you use, still needs to be able to format the event properly if you want the benefit of structured data format. I strongly suggest you consult with your Splunk Sales Engineer on the customer's account so that an expert or partner can help them achieve this and you can learn by working with them. Is this a onprem enterprise user? or Cloud user?
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