On Windows machines, Splunk is installed as a service that will start after installation and on reboot.
On Unix hosts, the Splunk command line provides a way to create startup scripts appropriate for the operating system that you are using. The command looks like this:
$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk enable boot-start
To run Splunk as another user, provide the flag -user, as follows:
$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk enable boot-start -user splunkuser
The startup command must still be run as root, but the startup script will be modified to run as the user provided.
If you do not run Splunk as root, and you shouldn't if you can avoid it, be sure that the Splunk installation and data directories are owned by the user specified ...
