According to the Splunk documentation1, the Search Job Inspector is a tool that you can use to troubleshoot search performance and understand the behavior of knowledge objects, such as event types, tags, lookups, and so on, within the search. You can inspect search jobs that are currently running or that have finished recently.
The Search Job Inspector can help you investigate error messages that appear underneath the search bar in Splunk Web, as it can show you the details of the search job, such as the search string, the search mode, the search timeline, the search log, the search profile, and the search properties. You can use this information to identify the cause of the error and fix it2. The other options are false because:
* Dashboard panels showing “Waiting for queued job to start” on page load is not a problem that can be investigated using the Search Job Inspector, as it indicates that the search job has not started yet. This
* could be due to the search scheduler being busy or the search priority being low. You can use the Jobs page or the Monitoring Console to monitor the status of the search jobs and adjust the priority or concurrency settings if needed3.
* Different users seeing different extracted fields from the same search is not a problem that can be investigated using the Search Job Inspector, as it is related to the user permissions and the knowledge object sharing settings. You can use the Access Controls page or the Knowledge Manager to manage the user roles and the knowledge object visibility4.
* Events not being sorted in reverse chronological order is not a problem that can be investigated using the Search Job Inspector, as it is related to the search syntax and the sort command. You can use the Search Manual or the Search Reference to learn how to use the sort command and its options to sort the events by any field or criteria.

Explanation
The client filters available in serverclass.conf are DNS name, IP address, and platform (machine type). These filters allow the administrator to specify which forwarders belong to a server class and receive the apps and configurations from the deployment server. The Splunk server role is not a valid client filter in serverclass.conf, as it is not a property of the forwarder. For more information, see [Use forwarder management filters] in the Splunk documentation.

Explanation/Reference: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/7.3.2/Indexer/Systemrequirements

The correct action to take first if a deployment client is not updating apps is to choose a corrective action based on the splunkd.log of the deployment client. This log file contains information about the communication between the deployment server and the deployment client, and it can help identify the root cause of the problem1. The other actions may or may not help, depending on the situation, but they are not the first steps to take. Choosing a longer phone home interval may reduce the load on the deployment server, but it will also delay the updates for the deployment clients2. Increasing the number of CPU cores or the amount of memory for the deployment server may improve its performance, but it will not fix the issue if the problem is on the deployment client side3. Therefore, option C is the correct answer, and options A, B, and D are incorrect.
1: Troubleshoot deployment server issues 2: Configure deployment clients 3: Hardware and software requirements for the deployment server

Explanation
The AggregatorMiningProcessor component in the splunkd.log file will log information related to bad event breaking. The AggregatorMiningProcessor is responsible for breaking the incoming data into events and applying the props.conf settings. If there is a problem with the event breaking, such as incorrect timestamps, missing events, or merged events, the AggregatorMiningProcessor will log the error or warning messages in the splunkd.log file. The Audittrail component logs information about the audit events, such as user actions, configuration changes, and search activity. The EventBreaking component logs information about the event breaking rules, such as the LINE_BREAKER and SHOULD_LINEMERGE settings. The IndexingPipeline component logs information about the indexing pipeline, such as the parsing, routing, and indexing phases.
For more information, see About Splunk Enterprise logging and [Configure event line breaking] in the Splunk documentation.

Splunk configuration files are files that contain settings that control various aspects of Splunk behavior, such as data inputs, outputs, indexing, searching, clustering, and so on1. Troubleshooting Splunk configuration files involves identifying and resolving issues that affect the functionality or performance of Splunk due to incorrect or conflicting configuration settings. Some of the tools and methods that can help with troubleshooting Splunk configuration files are:
* search.log: This is a file that contains detailed information about the execution of a search, such as the search pipeline, the search commands, the search results, the search errors, and the search performance2. This file can help troubleshoot issues related to search configuration, such as props.conf, transforms.conf, macros.conf, and so on3.
* btool output: This is a command-line tool that displays the effective configuration settings for a given Splunk component, such as inputs, outputs, indexes, props, and so on4. This tool can help troubleshoot issues related to configuration precedence, inheritance, and merging, as well as identify the source of a configuration setting5.
* diagnostic logs: These are files that contain information about the Splunk system, such as the Splunk version, the operating system, the hardware, the license, the indexes, the apps, the users, the roles, the permissions, the configuration files, the log files, and the metrics6. These files can help troubleshoot issues related to Splunk installation, deployment, performance, and health7.
Option A is the correct answer because crash logs are the least helpful in troubleshooting Splunk configuration files. Crash logs are files that contain information about the Splunk process when it crashes, such as the stack trace, the memory dump, and the environment variables8. These files can help troubleshoot issues related to Splunk stability, reliability, and security, but not necessarily related to Splunk configuration9.
References:
1: About configuration files – Splunk Documentation 2: Use the search.log file – Splunk Documentation 3: Troubleshoot search-time field extraction – Splunk Documentation 4: Use btool to troubleshoot configurations – Splunk Documentation 5: Troubleshoot configuration issues – Splunk Documentation 6: About the diagnostic utility – Splunk Documentation 7: Use the diagnostic utility – Splunk Documentation 8: About crash logs – Splunk Documentation 9: [Troubleshoot Splunk Enterprise crashes – Splunk Documentation]

Explanation/Reference: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/7.3.2/Indexer/Takeapeeroffline

According to the Splunk documentation1, metrics.log is a file that contains various metrics data for reviewing product behavior, such as pipeline, queue, thruput, and tcpout_connections. Metrics.log is stored in the
_internal index by default2, which is a special index that contains internal logs and metrics for Splunk Enterprise. The other options are false because:
* main is the default index for user data, not internal data3.
* _telemetry is an index that contains data collected by the Splunk Telemetry feature, which sends anonymous usage and performance data to Splunk4.
* _introspection is an index that contains data collected by the Splunk Monitoring Console, which monitors the health and performance of Splunk components.

Explanation/Reference: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/7.3.2/Indexer/Configuremulti-clustersearch

Intermediate forwarders are forwarders that receive data from other forwarders and then send that data to indexers. They can be useful in some scenarios, such as when network bandwidth or security constraints prevent direct forwarding to indexers, or when data needs to be routed, cloned, or modified in transit.
However, intermediate forwarders also introduce additional complexity and overhead to the data pipeline, which can affect the performance and reliability of data ingestion. Therefore, intermediate forwarders should be avoided when possible, and used only when there is a clear benefit or requirement for them. Some of the drawbacks of intermediate forwarders are:
* They increase the number of hops and connections in the data flow, which can introduce latency and
* increase the risk of data loss or corruption.
* They consume more resources on the hosts where they run, such as CPU, memory, disk, and network bandwidth, which can affect the performance of other applications or processes on those hosts.
* They require additional configuration and maintenance, such as setting up inputs, outputs, load balancing, security, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
* They can create data duplication or inconsistency if they are not configured properly, such as when using cloning or routing rules.
Some of the references that support this answer are:
* Configure an intermediate forwarder, which states: “Intermediate forwarding is where a forwarder receives data from one or more forwarders and then sends that data on to another indexer. This kind of setup is useful when, for example, you have many hosts in different geographical regions and you want to send data from those forwarders to a central host in that region before forwarding the data to an indexer. All forwarder types can act as an intermediate forwarder. However, this adds complexity to your deployment and can affect performance, so use it only when necessary.”
* Intermediate data routing using universal and heavy forwarders, which states: “This document outlines a variety of Splunk options for routing data that address both technical and business requirements. Overall benefits Using splunkd intermediate data routing offers the following overall benefits: … The routing strategies described in this document enable flexibility for reliably processing data at scale. Intermediate routing enables better security in event-level data as well as in transit. The following is a list of use cases and enablers for splunkd intermediate data routing: … Limitations splunkd intermediate data routing has the following limitations: … Increased complexity and resource consumption. splunkd intermediate data routing adds complexity to the data pipeline and consumes resources on the hosts where it runs. This can affect the performance and reliability of data ingestion and other applications or processes on those hosts. Therefore, intermediate routing should be avoided when possible, and used only when there is a clear benefit or requirement for it.”
* Use forwarders to get data into Splunk Enterprise, which states: “The forwarders take the Apache data and send it to your Splunk Enterprise deployment for indexing, which consolidates, stores, and makes the data available for searching. Because of their reduced resource footprint, forwarders have a minimal performance impact on the Apache servers. … Note: You can also configure a forwarder to send data to another forwarder, which then sends the data to the indexer. This is called intermediate forwarding.
However, this adds complexity to your deployment and can affect performance, so use it only when necessary.”

The client filters available in serverclass.conf are DNS name, IP address, and platform (machine type). These filters allow the administrator to specify which forwarders belong to a server class and receive the apps and configurations from the deployment server. The Splunk server role is not a valid client filter in serverclass.conf, as it is not a property of the forwarder. For more information, see [Use forwarder management filters] in the Splunk documentation.

Explanation/Reference: https://answers.splunk.com/answers/237859/can-i-delete-all-data-from-a-kv-store-at-once.html

The index=_internal component=DC* host=<uf> search will show all deployment client messages from the universal forwarder. The component field indicates the type of Splunk component that generated the message, and the host field indicates the host name of the machine that sent the message. The index=_audit component=DC* host=<uf> search will not return any results, because the deployment client messages are not stored in the _audit index. The index=_internal component=DS* host=<ds> search will show the deployment server messages from the deployment server, not the client. The index=_audit component=DS* host=<ds> search will also not return any results, for the same reason as above

Explanation/Reference: https://answers.splunk.com/answers/6926/how-to-keep-data-together-as-one-event.html

Explanation/Reference: https://www.splunk.com/pdfs/technical-briefs/splunk-deploying-vmware-tech-brief.pdf

Explanation
https://community.splunk.com/t5/Deployment-Architecture/How-to-resolve-error-quot-Error-pulling-configurati

Explanation/Reference: https://answers.splunk.com/answers/177021/why-is-deployment-client-not-picking-up-changes-
to.html

The Monitoring Console is the Splunk tool that offers a health check for administrators to evaluate the health of their Splunk deployment. The Monitoring Console provides dashboards and alerts that show the status and performance of various Splunk components, such as indexers, search heads, forwarders, license usage, and search activity. The Monitoring Console can also run health checks on the deployment and identify any issues or recommendations. The btool is a command-line tool that shows the effective settings of the configuration files, but it does not offer a health check. The DiagGen is a tool that generates diagnostic snapshots of the Splunk environment, but it does not offer a health check. The SPL Clinic is a tool that analyzes and optimizes SPL queries, but it does not offer a health check. For more information, see About the Monitoring Console in the Splunk documentation.

In search head clustering, there are two methods to transfer captaincy to a different member. One method is to use the Search Head Clustering settings menu from Splunk Web on any member. This method allows the user to select a specific member to become the new captain, or to let Splunk choose the best candidate. The other method is to run the splunk transfer shcluster-captain command from the member that the user wants to become the new captain. This method requires the user to know the name of the target member and to have access to the CLI of that member. Using the Monitoring Console is not a method to transfer captaincy, because the Monitoring Console does not have the option to change the captain. Running the splunk transfer shcluster-captain command from the current captain is not a method to transfer captaincy, because this command will fail with an error message