Does Splunk "phone home" or transmit data of any kind (for example, usage statistics) without my asking it to? We have systems it could be very handy for but the information is potentially sensitive
The Splunk server doesn’t send any customer data, metrics, etc to Splunk. However we do an update check where the Splunk server checks in to see if there is a newer version of Splunk. If they see us trying to make connection out and want this turned off, check out http://www.splunk.com/wiki/Community:ConfigureNoInternet
No, the server does not perform an update check. The client web browser will do an update check when you visit the SplunkWeb login page by default, so requests actually come from your web browser to splunk.com, not from the Splunk server. (If you haven't turned that behavior off, that is.)