Define processors

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You define processors in the packetbeat.yml file to filter and enhance the data before sending events to the configured output.

To define a processor, you specify the processor name, an optional condition, and a set of parameters:

processors:
 - <processor_name>:
     <parameters>
     when:
       <condition>
 - <processor_name>:
     <parameters>
     when:
       <condition>
...

Where:

  • <processor_name> specifies a processor that performs some kind of action, such as selecting the fields that are exported or adding metadata to the event.
  • <when: condition> specifies an optional condition. If the condition is present, then the action is executed only if the condition is fulfilled. If no condition is passed, then the action is always executed.
  • <parameters> is the list of parameters to pass to the processor.

Conditions

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Each condition receives a field to compare. You can specify multiple fields under the same condition by using AND between the fields (for example, field1 AND field2).

For each field, you can specify a simple field name or a nested map, for example dns.question.name.

See Exported Fields for a list of all the fields that are exported by Packetbeat.

The supported conditions are:

equals
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With the equals condition, you can compare if a field has a certain value. The condition accepts only an integer or a string value.

For example, the following condition checks if the response code of the HTTP transaction is 200:

equals:
  http.response.code: 200
contains
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The contains condition checks if a value is part of a field. The field can be a string or an array of strings. The condition accepts only a string value.

For example, the following condition checks if an error is part of the transaction status:

contains:
  status: "Specific error"
regexp
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The regexp condition checks the field against a regular expression. The condition accepts only strings.

For example, the following condition checks if the process name starts with foo:

regexp:
  system.process.name: "foo.*"
range
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The range condition checks if the field is in a certain range of values. The condition supports lt, lte, gt and gte. The condition accepts only integer or float values.

For example, the following condition checks for failed HTTP transactions by comparing the http.response.code field with 400.

range:
    http.response.code:
        gte: 400

This can also be written as:

range:
    http.response.code.gte: 400

The following condition checks if the CPU usage in percentage has a value between 0.5 and 0.8.

range:
    system.cpu.user.pct.gte: 0.5
    system.cpu.user.pct.lt: 0.8

The or operator receives a list of conditions.

or:
  - <condition1>
  - <condition2>
  - <condition3>
  ...

For example, to configure the condition http.response.code = 304 OR http.response.code = 404:

or:
  - equals:
      http.response.code: 304
  - equals:
      http.response.code: 404
and
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The and operator receives a list of conditions.

and:
  - <condition1>
  - <condition2>
  - <condition3>
  ...

For example, to configure the condition http.response.code = 200 AND status = OK:

and:
  - equals:
      http.response.code: 200
  - equals:
      status: OK

To configure a condition like <condition1> OR <condition2> AND <condition3>:

or:
 - <condition1>
 - and:
    - <condition2>
    - <condition3>
not
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The not operator receives the condition to negate.

not:
  <condition>

For example, to configure the condition NOT status = OK:

not:
  equals:
    status: OK