Prerequisites

Install the Collector using the Windows installer file (MSI)

To install the package using Windows Installer, download the Windows MSI package (64-bit only) from the Collector’s GitHub release site.

• The package is installed to \Program Files\Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector.

• The splunk-otel-collector service is created, but not started.

• A default configuration file is copied to \ProgramData\Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector\agent_config.yaml, if it does not already exist. This file is required to start the splunk-otel-collector service.

Next, follow the installer steps, or install the Collector using a PowerShell terminal.

Install using the graphical installer

Run the downloaded package and follow the instructions in the guided setup.

Install using a PowerShell terminal

Follow these steps:

1. Open a PowerShell terminal.

2. Run the following command, where PATH_TO_MSI is the full path to the downloaded package. For example, C:\your\download\folder\splunk-otel-collector-0.4.0-amd64.msi.

   Start-Process -Wait msiexec "/i PATH_TO_MSI /qn"

3. Configure the Collector using the variables listed in the table that follows:

   Start-Process -Wait msiexec "/i PATH_TO_MSI /qn SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN=<my_access_token>"

   Use the following installation configurations with the MSI deployment method:

   Name	Description	Default
   COLLECTOR_SVC_ARGS	Tells Windows MSI to configure the command-line arguments used to launch the Collector service on Windows.	Empty
   GOMEMLIMIT	Sets Go memory limit and tells the garbage collector to run more often as the target is approached. For more information see Update the Collector for Windows. Available starting on version 0.127.0.	Empty
   SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN	The Splunk access token to authenticate requests.	Empty
   SPLUNK_API_URL	The Splunk API URL.	https://api.[SPLUNK_REALM].signalfx.com
   SPLUNK_BUNDLE_DIR	The path to the Smart Agent bundle.	[INSTALLDIR]\OpenTelemetry Collector\agent-bundle
   SPLUNK_COLLECTD_DIR	The path to the collectd config directory for the Smart Agent. For example, /usr/lib/splunk-otel-collector/agent-bundle/run/collectd	Optional. Only added if passed to msiexec command.
   SPLUNK_CONFIG	Destination path of the Collector custom configuration file.	[CommonAppDataFolder]Splunk\OpenTelemetry Collector\[SPLUNK_SETUP_COLLECTOR_MODE]_config.yaml
   SPLUNK_GATEWAY_URL	URL in Gateway mode.	Optional. Only added if passed to msiexec command.
   SPLUNK_HEC_TOKEN	The Splunk HEC authentication token.	[SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN]
   SPLUNK_HEC_URL	The Splunk HEC endpoint URL.	https://ingest.[SPLUNK_REALM].signalfx.com/v1/log
   SPLUNK_INGEST_URL	The Splunk ingest URL.	https://ingest.[SPLUNK_REALM].signalfx.com
   SPLUNK_LISTEN_INTERFACE	The network interface the agent receivers listen on.	Optional. Only added if passed to msiexec command.
   SPLUNK_MEMORY_LIMIT_MIB	Use it to set the memory limit for the memory_limiter processor.	Optional. Only added if passed to msiexec command.
   SPLUNK_MEMORY_TOTAL_MIB	Total memory in MiB to allocate to the Collector	Optional. Only added if passed to msiexec command.
   SPLUNK_REALM	Your Splunk realm.	us0
   SPLUNK_SETUP_COLLECTOR_MODE	Install property that sets the Collector’s deployment mode to either agent or gateway. Learn more at Collector deployment modes.	agent
   SPLUNK_TRACE_URL	The Splunk trace endpoint URL.	https://ingest.[SPLUNK_REALM].signalfx.com/v2/trace

4. Start the splunk-otel-collector service by rebooting the system or by running the following command in a PowerShell terminal:

   Start-Service splunk-otel-collector

See advanced configuration options in PowerShell, including Service Logging, in the following docs:

• Install the Collector for Windows manually

• Advanced configuration for Windows

Custom MSI URLs

By default, the Collector MSI is downloaded from https://dl.signalfx.com.

To specify custom URLs for this download replace COLLECTOR_MSI_URL with the URL to the desired MSI packages to install:

& {Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; $script = ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://dl.signalfx.com/splunk-otel-collector.ps1')); $params = @{access_token = "<SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN>"; realm = "<SPLUNK_REALM>"; collector_msi_url = "<COLLECTOR_MSI_URL>"; Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock ([scriptblock]::Create(". {$script} $(&{$args} @params)"))}

Install the Collector using a Chocolatey package

You can use a Chocolatey package to download, install, and configure the Collector with the following PowerShell command:

choco install splunk-otel-collector --params="'/SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN:MY_SPLUNK_ACCESS_TOKEN /SPLUNK_REALM:MY_SPLUNK_REALM'"

Next steps