Configure the Elasticsearch output

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When you specify Elasticsearch for the output, the Beat sends the transactions directly to Elasticsearch by using the Elasticsearch HTTP API.

Example configuration:

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["http://localhost:9200"]
  index: "metricbeat-%{[beat.version]}-%{+yyyy.MM.dd}"
  ssl.certificate_authorities: ["/etc/pki/root/ca.pem"]
  ssl.certificate: "/etc/pki/client/cert.pem"
  ssl.key: "/etc/pki/client/cert.key"

To enable SSL, just add https to all URLs defined under hosts.

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["https://localhost:9200"]
  username: "admin"
  password: "s3cr3t"

If the Elasticsearch nodes are defined by IP:PORT, then add protocol: https to the yaml file.

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["localhost"]
  protocol: "https"
  username: "admin"
  password: "s3cr3t"

Compatibility

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This output works with all compatible versions of Elasticsearch. See "Supported Beats Versions" in the Elastic Support Matrix.

Configuration options

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You can specify the following options in the elasticsearch section of the metricbeat.yml config file:

enabled

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The enabled config is a boolean setting to enable or disable the output. If set to false, the output is disabled.

The default value is true.

hosts

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The list of Elasticsearch nodes to connect to. The events are distributed to these nodes in round robin order. If one node becomes unreachable, the event is automatically sent to another node. Each Elasticsearch node can be defined as a URL or IP:PORT. For example: http://192.15.3.2, https://es.found.io:9230 or 192.24.3.2:9300. If no port is specified, 9200 is used.

When a node is defined as an IP:PORT, the scheme and path are taken from the protocol and path config options.

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["10.45.3.2:9220", "10.45.3.1:9230"]
  protocol: https
  path: /elasticsearch

In the previous example, the Elasticsearch nodes are available at https://10.45.3.2:9220/elasticsearch and https://10.45.3.1:9230/elasticsearch.

compression_level

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The gzip compression level. Setting this value to 0 disables compression. The compression level must be in the range of 1 (best speed) to 9 (best compression).

Increasing the compression level will reduce the network usage but will increase the cpu usage.

The default value is 0.

worker

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The number of workers per configured host publishing events to Elasticsearch. This is best used with load balancing mode enabled. Example: If you have 2 hosts and 3 workers, in total 6 workers are started (3 for each host).

The default value is 1.

username

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The basic authentication username for connecting to Elasticsearch.

password

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The basic authentication password for connecting to Elasticsearch.

parameters

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Dictionary of HTTP parameters to pass within the url with index operations.

protocol

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The name of the protocol Elasticsearch is reachable on. The options are: http or https. The default is http. However, if you specify a URL for hosts, the value of protocol is overridden by whatever scheme you specify in the URL.

path

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An HTTP path prefix that is prepended to the HTTP API calls. This is useful for the cases where Elasticsearch listens behind an HTTP reverse proxy that exports the API under a custom prefix.

headers

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Custom HTTP headers to add to each request created by the Elasticsearch output. Example:

output.elasticsearch.headers:
  X-My-Header: Header contents

It is generally possible to specify multiple header values for the same header name by separating them with a comma.

proxy_url

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The URL of the proxy to use when connecting to the Elasticsearch servers. The value may be either a complete URL or a "host[:port]", in which case the "http" scheme is assumed. If a value is not specified through the configuration file then proxy environment variables are used. See the golang documentation for more information about the environment variables.

index

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The index name to write events to. The default is "metricbeat-%\{[beat.version]\}-%\{+yyyy.MM.dd\}" (for example, "metricbeat-6.1.4-2017.04.26"). If you change this setting, you also need to configure the setup.template.name and setup.template.pattern options (see Load the Elasticsearch index template). If you are using the pre-built Kibana dashboards, you also need to set the setup.dashboards.index option (see Load the Kibana dashboards).

indices

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Array of index selector rules supporting conditionals, format string based field access and name mappings. The first rule matching will be used to set the index for the event to be published. If indices is missing or no rule matches, the index field will be used.

Rule settings:

index: The index format string to use. If the fields used are missing, the rule fails.

mapping: Dictionary mapping index names to new names

default: Default string value if mapping does not find a match.

when: Condition which must succeed in order to execute the current rule.

Examples elasticsearch output with indices:

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["http://localhost:9200"]
  index: "logs-%{[beat.version]}-%{+yyyy.MM.dd}"
  indices:
    - index: "critical-%{[beat.version]}-%{+yyyy.MM.dd}"
      when.contains:
        message: "CRITICAL"
    - index: "error-%{[beat.version]}-%{+yyyy.MM.dd}"
      when.contains:
        message: "ERR"

pipeline

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A format string value that specifies the ingest node pipeline to write events to.

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["http://localhost:9200"]
  pipeline: my_pipeline_id

For more information, see Parse logs by using ingest node.

pipelines

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Similar to the indices array, this is an array of pipeline selector configurations supporting conditionals, format string based field access and name mappings. The first rule matching will be used to set the pipeline for the event to be published. If pipelines is missing or no rule matches, the pipeline field will be used.

Example elasticsearch output with pipelines:

filebeat.prospectors:
- paths: ["/var/log/app/normal/*.log"]
  fields:
    type: "normal"
- paths: ["/var/log/app/critical/*.log"]
  fields:
    type: "critical"

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["http://localhost:9200"]
  index: "filebeat-%{[beat.version]}-%{+yyyy.MM.dd}"
  pipelines:
    - pipeline: critical_pipeline
      when.equals:
        fields.type: "critical"
    - pipeline: normal_pipeline
      when.equals:
        fields.type: "normal"

max_retries

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The number of times to retry publishing an event after a publishing failure. After the specified number of retries, the events are typically dropped. Some Beats, such as Filebeat, ignore the max_retries setting and retry until all events are published.

Set max_retries to a value less than 0 to retry until all events are published.

The default is 3.

bulk_max_size

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The maximum number of events to bulk in a single Elasticsearch bulk API index request. The default is 50.

If the Beat sends single events, the events are collected into batches. If the Beat publishes a large batch of events (larger than the value specified by bulk_max_size), the batch is split.

Specifying a larger batch size can improve performance by lowering the overhead of sending events. However big batch sizes can also increase processing times, which might result in API errors, killed connections, timed-out publishing requests, and, ultimately, lower throughput.

Setting bulk_max_size to values less than or equal to 0 disables the splitting of batches. When splitting is disabled, the queue decides on the number of events to be contained in a batch.

timeout

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The http request timeout in seconds for the Elasticsearch request. The default is 90.

ssl

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Configuration options for SSL parameters like the certificate authority to use for HTTPS-based connections. If the ssl section is missing, the host CAs are used for HTTPS connections to Elasticsearch.

See Specify SSL settings for more information.