Yes and no. As described in https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/9.0.3/Indexer/indexerdiscovery  If the manager node goes down, the forwarders will rely on their most recent list of available peer nodes. However, the list does not persist through a forwarder restart. Therefore, if a forwarder restarts while the manager is down, it will not have a list of peer nodes and will not be able to forward data, resulting in potential data loss. Similarly, if a forwarder starts up for the first time, it must wait for the manager to return before it can get a list of peers. Also, when using indexer discovery, each peer node can have only a single configured receiving port. The port can be configured for either [splunktcp] or [splunktcp-ssl], but not for both. You must use the same method for all peer nodes in the cluster: [splunktcp] or [splunktcp-ssl]. ... View more