Other changes

The following list of implementation changes should not affect your experience migrating from Logstash Forwarder, but you should be aware of the changes. Please post GitHub issues if you notice any regressions from Logstash Forwarder.

The packaging process for Filebeat uses the Beats infrastructure, so some aspects of packaging, such as the init scripts, are different from Logstash Forwarder. Please post GitHub issues if you hit any issues with the new packages.

One notable change is the name of the registry file. The name varies depending on the package type:

Behind the scenes, Filebeat uses a slightly improved protocol for communicating with Logstash.

If you follow the section on migrating the configuration, you will have SSL enabled. However, you must be aware that if the ssl section is missing from the configuration file, Filebeat uses an unencrypted connection to talk to Logstash.

Filebeat uses libbeat logging and can also log to rotating files instead of syslog.