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Elastic Docs ›Filebeat Reference [7.4] ›Modules

CEF module

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CEF module

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This is a module for receiving Common Event Format (CEF) data over Syslog. When messages are received over the syslog protocol the syslog input will parse the header and set the timestamp value. Then the decode_cef processor is applied to parse the CEF encoded data. The decoded data is written into a cef object field. Lastly any Elastic Common Schema (ECS) fields that can be populated with the CEF data are populated.

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 cef

    mac:

    ./filebeat modules enable cef

    brew:

    filebeat modules enable cef

    linux:

    ./filebeat modules enable cef

    win:

    PS > .\filebeat.exe modules enable cef

    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

    brew:

    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

    brew:

    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

    brew:

    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.

Configure the module

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

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 cef module uses the defaults.

For more information, see Specify variable settings. Also see Override input settings.

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

log fileset settings

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var.syslog_host
The interface to listen to UDP based syslog traffic. Defaults to localhost. Set to 0.0.0.0 to bind to all available interfaces.
var.syslog_port
The UDP port to listen for syslog traffic. Defaults to 9003

Ports below 1024 require Filebeat to run as root.

Fields

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

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