IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.
« MySQL module Osquery module »
Elastic Docs ›Filebeat Reference [6.4] ›Modules

Nginx module

edit

Nginx module

edit

The nginx module parses access and error logs created by the Nginx HTTP server.

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
  • Deploys dashboards for visualizing the log data

Compatibility

edit

This module requires the ingest-user-agent and ingest-geoip Elasticsearch plugins.

The Nginx module was tested with logs from version 1.10.

On Windows, the module was tested with Nginx installed from the Chocolatey repository.

Set up and run the module

edit

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 nginx

    mac:

    ./filebeat modules enable nginx

    win:

    PS > .\filebeat.exe modules enable nginx

    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

    win:

    PS > .\filebeat.exe modules list

  2. Set up the initial environment:

    deb and rpm:

    filebeat setup -e

    mac:

    ./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.

  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

    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.

  4. Explore your data in Kibana:

    1. Open your browser and navigate to the Dashboard overview in Kibana: http://localhost:5601/app/kibana#/dashboards. Replace localhost with the name of the Kibana host. If you’re using an Elastic Cloud instance, log in to your cloud account, then navigate to the Kibana endpoint in your deployment.
    2. If necessary, log in with your Kibana username and password.

    3. Enter the module name in the search box, then open a dashboard and explore the visualizations for your parsed logs.

      If you don’t see data in Kibana, try changing the date range to a larger range. By default, Kibana shows the last 15 minutes.

Example dashboard

edit

This module comes with sample dashboards. For example:

kibana nginx

Configure the module

edit

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

The following example shows how to set paths in the modules.d/nginx.yml file to override the default paths for access logs and error logs:

- module: nginx
  access:
    enabled: true
    var.paths: ["/path/to/log/nginx/access.log*"]
  error:
    enabled: true
    var.paths: ["/path/to/log/nginx/error.log*"]

To specify the same settings at the command line, you use:

-M "nginx.access.var.paths=[/path/to/log/nginx/access.log*]" -M "nginx.error.var.paths=[/path/to/log/nginx/error.log*]"

Variable settings

edit

Each fileset has separate variable settings for configuring the behavior of the module. If you don’t specify variable settings, the nginx module uses the defaults.

For more information, see Specify variable settings. Also see Advanced settings.

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

access log fileset settings

edit
var.paths
An array of paths that specify where to look for the log files. If left empty, Filebeat will choose the paths depending on your operating systems.

error log fileset

edit
var.paths
An array of paths that specify where to look for the log files. If left empty, Filebeat will choose the paths depending on your operating systems.

Fields

edit

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

« MySQL module Osquery module »