Final answer:
The .conf file on a forwarder that gathers local logs and system information is inputs.conf, which sets up the data collection in Splunk.
Step-by-step explanation:
The .conf file on a forwarder that gathers local logs and system information is inputs.conf. When configuring a forwarder in Splunk, which is a popular platform for analyzing and visualizing machine-generated data, inputs.conf is responsible for specifying what data is collected and how it is processed.
This includes details such as file paths for logs, types of logs, and various settings for monitoring and gathering system data. The other configuration files mentioned, such as outputs.conf, props.conf, and transforms.conf, have different roles. outputs.conf defines how the data is forwarded to a receiving indexer, while props.conf and transforms.conf are used for data transformation and parsing.