Splunk for Mendix Cloud

Last modified: October 1, 2024

Introduction

Splunk Cloud Platform is a monitoring and analysis tool for cloud applications. This document explains how to configure your Mendix Cloud app to send the runtime application logs to Splunk Cloud Platform to provide additional search, analysis, and visualization of your runtime application logs.

Mendix provides integration with Splunk Cloud Platform; it does not currently integrate with other Splunk monitoring products. Mendix sends only the runtime application logs to Splunk.

For support on other cloud deployment options, such as Private Cloud, refer to their dedicated documentation. For Private Cloud deployment, for example, see Monitoring Environments in Mendix for Private Cloud.

Prerequisites

To use the Splunk Cloud Platform and send data to Splunk Cloud Platform from your Mendix app, you need the following:

Access to Splunk Cloud Platform
An access token for your Splunk Cloud Platform account, obtained from the Splunk Cloud Platform dashboard
A licensed Mendix app of which you are the Technical Contact

Connecting Your Node to Splunk Cloud Platform

Set up Splunk Integration on the Mendix Portal

To send your runtime information to Splunk Cloud Platform, you need to set it up using environment variables in the Mendix Portal.

From Apps, go to the Environments page of your app.
Click Details on the environment you wish to monitor with Splunk Cloud Platform.
Switch to the Runtime tab.

Add the following Custom Environment Variables.

Variable	Description	Default
`SPLUNK_HOST`	The hostname or the IP address of the Splunk Cloud Platform Controller without the scheme (protocol). An example is `test.splunkcloud.com`.
`SPLUNK_PORT`	The HTTP (or HTTPS) port of the Splunk Cloud Platform Controller.	`8088`
`SPLUNK_TOKEN`	An access token to the Splunk Cloud Platform. To create a new token on the Splunk Cloud dashboard, open the Splunk Cloud dashboard in a browser, go to Settings > Data Input > HTTP Event Collector, and click New Token (on the upper-right corner of the page).
`LOGS_REDACTION`	Email addresses are automatically redacted before log entries are sent to Splunk Cloud Platform. To disable this redaction, set `LOGS_REDACTION` to `false`. The environment variable `SPLUNK_LOGS_REDACTION` is still supported, but it is now deprecated and will be removed in a later version. Its use is not recommended.	`true`

Return to the Environments page for your app and Deploy or Transport your app into the selected environment.

The first time you set up the Splunk Cloud Platform integration, you must redeploy your app and then restart it. Just restarting the app is not sufficient because additional dependencies need to be included.

Metadata

In addition to the runtime application logs, the following JSON-formatted metadata is automatically sent to the Splunk Cloud Platform:

environment_id – unique identifier of the environment
instance_index – number of the application instance
hostname – name of the application host
application_name – default application name, retrieved from domain name
model_version – model version of the Mendix runtime
runtime_version – version of the Mendix runtime

You can filter the data by these fields.

Custom tags

You can also set up custom tags in the format key:value. Mendix recommends adding the following custom tags:

app:{app_name} (for example, app:customermanagement) – this enables you to identify all logs sent from your app
env:{environment_name} (for example, env:accp) – this enables you to identify logs sent from a particular environment so you can separate out production logs from test logs

To set these tags, do the following:

From Apps, go to the Environments page of your app.
Click Details on an environment you are monitoring with Splunk.
Switch to the Tags tab.
Click Add and type in the string to be sent to Splunk as a tag.
Restart the app.

Additional Information

Location of Logs

Once the Mendix application is redeployed and restarted, the runtime application logs will appear on Splunk Cloud Platform under Search & Reporting.

In the search line, specify source="http:your_token_name" and click the search button.

Splunk Cloud Platform Issues

If you have any issues related to accessing Splunk Cloud Platform, contact their support using the links on the Splunk Cloud Platform site. You will need a Splunk Cloud Platform account to request support.

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