Query Splunk Data through ODBC in Node.js

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript code outside of a browser. With the CData ODBC Driver for Splunk, you can access live Splunk data from Node.js apps and scripts. In this article, we walk through installing node-odbc and the required tools to create a simple Node.js app with access to live Splunk data.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Splunk data in Node.js. When you issue complex SQL queries from Node.js to Splunk, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Splunk and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Splunk Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

To authenticate requests, set the User, Password, and URL properties to valid Splunk credentials. The port on which the requests are made to Splunk is port 8089.

The data provider uses plain-text authentication by default, since the data provider attempts to negotiate TLS/SSL with the server.

If you need to manually configure TLS/SSL, see Getting Started -> Advanced Settings in the data provider help documentation.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Splunk through the CData ODBC Driver, you need to build node-odbc manually (after installing the required tools).

Installing the Required Tools

The following commands install the tools required to build node-odbc (note the -g parameter, which installs the tools globally).

npm i -g windows-build-tools
npm i -g node-gyp

Building node-odbc

After installing the required tools, create a directory for the Node.js app and install odbc (which builds the binary for us to use in our Node.js script).

mkdir nodeodbc
cd nodeodbc
npm i -g node

Querying Splunk from Node.js

With the ODBC Driver installed, a DSN Configured, and node-odbc built, we are ready to query live Splunk data from a Node.js app. The sample code below connects to a specific DSN and queries the DataModels table.

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function querySplunk() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData Splunk Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT Name, Owner FROM DataModels');
    console.log(data);
}

querySplunk();

Once you write the app, use node to execute the script:

node myscript.js

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for Splunk and start working with your live Splunk data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.