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Elastic Docs ›Filebeat Reference [6.8] ›Modules

System module

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System module

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The system module collects and parses logs created by the system logging service of common Unix/Linux based distributions.

When you run the module, it performs a few tasks under the hood:

  • Sets the default paths to the log files (but don’t worry, you can override the defaults)
  • Makes sure each multiline log event gets sent as a single event
  • Uses ingest node to parse and process the log lines, shaping the data into a structure suitable for visualizing in Kibana
  • Deploys dashboards for visualizing the log data

Compatibility

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This module was tested with logs from OSes like Ubuntu 12.04, Centos 7, and macOS Sierra.

With Elasticsearch < 6.7, this module requires the ingest-user-agent and ingest-geoip Elasticsearch plugins.

This module is not available for Windows.

Set up and run the module

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Before doing these steps, verify that Elasticsearch and Kibana are running and that Elasticsearch is ready to receive data from Filebeat.

If you’re running our hosted Elasticsearch Service on Elastic Cloud, or you’ve enabled security in Elasticsearch and Kibana, you need to specify additional connection information before setting up and running the module. See Quick start: modules for common log formats for the complete setup.

To set up and run the module:

  1. Enable the module:

    deb and rpm:

    filebeat modules enable system

    mac:

    ./filebeat modules enable system

    linux:

    ./filebeat modules enable system

    win:

    PS > .\filebeat.exe modules enable system

    This command enables the module config defined in the modules.d directory. See Specify which modules to run for other ways to enable modules.

    To see a list of enabled and disabled modules, run:

    deb and rpm:

    filebeat modules list

    mac:

    ./filebeat modules list

    linux:

    ./filebeat modules list

    win:

    PS > .\filebeat.exe modules list

  2. Set up the initial environment:

    deb and rpm:

    filebeat setup -e

    mac:

    ./filebeat setup -e

    linux:

    ./filebeat setup -e

    win:

    PS > .\filebeat.exe setup -e

    The setup command loads the recommended index template for writing to Elasticsearch and deploys the sample dashboards (if available) for visualizing the data in Kibana. This is a one-time setup step.

    The -e flag is optional and sends output to standard error instead of syslog.

    The ingest pipelines used to parse log lines are set up automatically the first time you run the module, assuming the Elasticsearch output is enabled. If you’re sending events to Logstash, or plan to use Beats central management, also see Load ingest pipelines manually.

  3. Run Filebeat.

    If your logs aren’t in the default location, see Configure the module, then run Filebeat after you’ve set the paths variable.

    deb and rpm:

    service filebeat start

    mac:

    ./filebeat -e

    linux:

    ./filebeat -e

    win:

    PS > Start-Service filebeat

    If the module is configured correctly, you’ll see INFO Harvester started messages for each file specified in the config.

    Depending on how you’ve installed Filebeat, you might see errors related to file ownership or permissions when you try to run Filebeat modules. See Config File Ownership and Permissions in the Beats Platform Reference for more information.

  4. Explore your data in Kibana:

    1. Open your browser and navigate to the Dashboard overview in Kibana: http://localhost:5601/app/kibana#/dashboards. Replace localhost with the name of the Kibana host. If you’re using an Elastic Cloud instance, log in to your cloud account, then navigate to the Kibana endpoint in your deployment.
    2. If necessary, log in with your Kibana username and password.

    3. Enter the module name in the search box, then open a dashboard and explore the visualizations for your parsed logs.

      If you don’t see data in Kibana, try changing the date range to a larger range. By default, Kibana shows the last 15 minutes.

Example dashboards

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This module comes with sample dashboards. For example:

kibana system

Configure the module

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You can further refine the behavior of the system module by specifying variable settings in the modules.d/system.yml file, or overriding settings at the command line.

The following example shows how to set paths in the modules.d/system.yml file to override the default paths for the syslog and authorization logs:

- module: system
  syslog:
    enabled: true
    var.paths: ["/path/to/log/syslog*"]
  auth:
    enabled: true
    var.paths: ["/path/to/log/auth.log*"]

To specify the same settings at the command line, you use:

-M "system.syslog.var.paths=[/path/to/log/syslog*]" -M "system.auth.var.paths=[/path/to/log/auth.log*]"

Variable settings

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Each fileset has separate variable settings for configuring the behavior of the module. If you don’t specify variable settings, the system module uses the defaults.

For more information, see Specify variable settings. Also see Advanced settings.

When you specify a setting at the command line, remember to prefix the setting with the module name, for example, system.syslog.var.paths instead of syslog.var.paths.

syslog fileset settings

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var.paths
An array of glob-based paths that specify where to look for the log files. All patterns supported by Go Glob are also supported here. For example, you can use wildcards to fetch all files from a predefined level of subdirectories: /path/to/log/*/*.log. This fetches all .log files from the subfolders of /path/to/log. It does not fetch log files from the /path/to/log folder itself. If this setting is left empty, Filebeat will choose log paths based on your operating system.
var.convert_timezone
If this option is enabled, Filebeat reads the local timezone and uses it at log parsing time to convert the timestamp to UTC. The local timezone is also added in each event in a dedicated field (beat.timezone). The conversion is only possible in Elasticsearch >= 6.1. If the Elasticsearch version is less than 6.1, the beat.timezone field is added, but the conversion to UTC is not made. The default is false.

auth fileset settings

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var.paths
An array of glob-based paths that specify where to look for the log files. All patterns supported by Go Glob are also supported here. For example, you can use wildcards to fetch all files from a predefined level of subdirectories: /path/to/log/*/*.log. This fetches all .log files from the subfolders of /path/to/log. It does not fetch log files from the /path/to/log folder itself. If this setting is left empty, Filebeat will choose log paths based on your operating system.
var.convert_timezone
If this option is enabled, Filebeat reads the local timezone and uses it at log parsing time to convert the timestamp to UTC. The local timezone is also added in each event in a dedicated field (beat.timezone). The conversion is only possible in Elasticsearch >= 6.1. If the Elasticsearch version is less than 6.1, the beat.timezone field is added, but the conversion to UTC is not made. The default is false.

Fields

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For a description of each field in the module, see the exported fields section.

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