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Elastic Docs ›Metricbeat Reference [5.1] ›Getting Started With Metricbeat

Step 3: Loading the Index Template in Elasticsearch

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Step 3: Loading the Index Template in Elasticsearch

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In Elasticsearch, index templates are used to define settings and mappings that determine how fields should be analyzed.

The recommended index template file for Metricbeat is installed by the Metricbeat packages. If you accept the default configuration for template loading in the metricbeat.yml config file, Metricbeat loads the template automatically after successfully connecting to Elasticsearch. If the template already exists, it’s not overwritten unless you configure Metricbeat to do so.

If you want to disable automatic template loading, or you want to load your own template, you can change the settings for template loading in the Metricbeat configuration file. If you choose to disable automatic template loading, you need to load the template manually. For more information, see:

Configuring Template Loading

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By default, Metricbeat automatically loads the recommended template file, metricbeat.template.json, if Elasticsearch output is enabled. You can configure metricbeat to load a different template by adjusting the template.name and template.path options in metricbeat.yml file:

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["localhost:9200"]
  template.name: "metricbeat"
  template.path: "metricbeat.template.json"
  template.overwrite: false

By default, if a template already exists in the index, it is not overwritten. To overwrite an existing template, set template.overwrite: true in the configuration file.

To disable automatic template loading, comment out the template part under the Elasticsearch output.

The options for auto loading the template are not supported if you are using the Logstash output.

Loading the Template Manually

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If you disable automatic template loading, you need to run the following command to load the template:

deb or rpm:

curl -XPUT 'http://localhost:9200/_template/metricbeat' -d@/etc/metricbeat/metricbeat.template.json

mac:

cd metricbeat-5.1.2-darwin-x86_64
curl -XPUT 'http://localhost:9200/_template/metricbeat' [email protected]

win:

PS C:\Program Files\Metricbeat> Invoke-WebRequest -Method Put -InFile metricbeat.template.json -Uri http://localhost:9200/_template/metricbeat?pretty

where localhost:9200 is the IP and port where Elasticsearch is listening.

If you’ve already used Metricbeat to index data into Elasticsearch, the index may contain old documents. After you load the index template, you can delete the old documents from metricbeat-* to force Kibana to look at the newest documents. Use this command:

curl -XDELETE 'http://localhost:9200/metricbeat-*'
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