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Elastic Docs ›Filebeat Reference [7.4] ›Modules

Elasticsearch module

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Elasticsearch module

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This functionality is in beta and is subject to change. The design and code is less mature than official GA features and is being provided as-is with no warranties. Beta features are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features.

This is the elasticsearch module.

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

Compatibility

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The Elasticsearch module is compatible with Elasticsearch 6.2 and newer.

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 elasticsearch

    mac:

    ./filebeat modules enable elasticsearch

    brew:

    filebeat modules enable elasticsearch

    linux:

    ./filebeat modules enable elasticsearch

    win:

    PS > .\filebeat.exe modules enable elasticsearch

    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 elasticsearch module by specifying variable settings in the modules.d/elasticsearch.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 elasticsearch 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, elasticsearch.server.var.paths instead of server.var.paths.

server log 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.

Example config:

  server:
    enabled: true
    var.paths:
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/*.log          # Plain text logs
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/*_server.json  # JSON logs

If you’re running against Elasticsearch >= 7.0.0, configure the var.paths setting to point to JSON logs. Otherwise, configure it to point to plain text logs.

gc log 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.

Example config:

  gc:
    var.paths:
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/gc.log.[0-9]*
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/gc.log

audit log 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.

Example config:

  audit:
    var.paths:
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/*_access.log  # Plain text logs
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/*_audit.json  # JSON logs

If you’re running against Elasticsearch >= 7.0.0, configure the var.paths setting to point to JSON logs. Otherwise, configure it to point to plain text logs.

slowlog log 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.

Example config:

  slowlog:
    var.paths:
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/*_index_search_slowlog.log     # Plain text logs
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/*_index_indexing_slowlog.log   # Plain text logs
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/*_index_search_slowlog.json    # JSON logs
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/*_index_indexing_slowlog.json  # JSON logs

If you’re running against Elasticsearch >= 7.0.0, configure the var.paths setting to point to JSON logs. Otherwise, configure it to point to plain text logs.

deprecation log 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.

Example config:

  deprecation:
    var.paths:
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/*_deprecation.log   # Plain text logs
      - /var/log/elasticsearch/*_deprecation.json  # JSON logs

If you’re running against Elasticsearch >= 7.0.0, configure the var.paths setting to point to JSON logs. Otherwise, configure it to point to plain text logs.

Timezone support

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This module parses logs that don’t contain timezone information. For these logs, Filebeat reads the local timezone and uses it when parsing to convert the timestamp to UTC. The timezone to be used for parsing is included in the event in the event.timezone field.

To disable this conversion, the event.timezone field can be removed with the drop_fields processor.

If logs are originated from systems or applications with a different timezone to the local one, the event.timezone field can be overwritten with the original timezone using the add_fields processor.

See Filter and enhance the exported data for information about specifying processors in your config.

Fields

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

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