Journald input
editJournald input
editThis functionality is in technical preview and may be changed or removed in a future release. Elastic will work to fix any issues, but features in technical preview are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features.
journald
is a system service that collects and stores logging data. The journald
input
reads this log data and the metadata associated with it.
The simplest configuration example is one that reads all logs from the default journal.
filebeat.inputs: - type: journald id: everything
You may wish to have separate inputs for each service. You can use
include_matches
to specify filtering expressions.
A good way to list the journald fields that are available for
filtering messages is to run journalctl -o json
to output logs and metadata as
JSON. This example collects logs from the vault.service
systemd unit.
filebeat.inputs: - type: journald id: service-vault include_matches.match: - _SYSTEMD_UNIT=vault.service
This example collects kernel logs where the message begins with iptables
.
Note that include_matches
is more efficient than Beat processors because that
are applied before the data is passed to the Filebeat so prefer them where
possible.
filebeat.inputs: - type: journald id: iptables include_matches.match: - _TRANSPORT=kernel processors: - drop_event: when.not.regexp.message: '^iptables'
Each example adds the id
for the input to ensure the cursor is persisted to
the registry with a unique ID. The ID should be unique among journald inputs.
If you don’t specify and id
then one is created for you by hashing
the configuration. So when you modify the config this will result in a new ID
and a fresh cursor.
Configuration options
editThe journald
input supports the following configuration options plus the
Common options described later.
id
editAn optional unique identifier for the input. By providing a unique id
you can
operate multiple inputs on the same journal. This allows each input’s cursor to
be persisted independently in the registry file.
filebeat.inputs: - type: journald id: consul.service include_matches: - _SYSTEMD_UNIT=consul.service - type: journald id: vault.service include_matches: - _SYSTEMD_UNIT=vault.service
paths
editA list of paths that will be crawled and fetched. Each path can be a directory path (to collect events from all journals in a directory), or a file path. If you specify a directory, Filebeat merges all journals under the directory into a single journal and reads them.
If no paths are specified, Filebeat reads from the default journal.
backoff
editThe number of seconds to wait before trying to read again from journals. The default is 1s.
max_backoff
editThe maximum number of seconds to wait before attempting to read again from journals. The default is 60s.
seek
editThe position to start reading the journal from. Valid settings are:
-
head
: Starts reading at the beginning of the journal. After a restart, Filebeat resends all log messages in the journal. -
tail
: Starts reading at the end of the journal. This means that no events will be sent until a new message is written. -
cursor
: On first read, starts reading at the beginning of the journal. After a reload or restart, continues reading at the last known position. -
since
: Use thesince
option to determine where to start reading from.
If you have old log files and want to skip lines, start Filebeat with
seek: tail
specified. Then stop Filebeat, set seek: cursor
, and restart
Filebeat.
cursor_seek_fallback
editThe position to start reading the journal from if no cursor information is
available. Valid options are head
, tail
and since
.
since
editA time offset from the current time to start reading from. To use
since
, either the seek
option must be set to since
, or the seek
mode
must be set to cursor
and the cursor_seek_fallback
set to since
.
This example demonstrates how to resume from the persisted cursor when it exists, or otherwise begin reading logs from the last 24 hours.
seek: cursor cursor_seek_fallback: since since: -24h
units
editIterate only the entries of the units specified in this option. The iterated entries include messages from the units, messages about the units by authorized daemons and coredumps. However, it does not match systemd user units.
syslog_identifiers
editRead only the entries with the selected syslog identifiers.
transports
editCollect the messages using the specified transports. Example: syslog.
Valid transports:
- audit: messages from the kernel audit subsystem
- driver: internally generated messages
- syslog: messages received via the local syslog socket with the syslog protocol
- journal: messages received via the native journal protocol
- stdout: messages from a service’s standard output or error output
- kernel: messages from the kernel
include_matches
editA collection of filter expressions used to match fields. The format of the expression
is field=value
. Filebeat fetches all events that exactly match the
expressions. Pattern matching is not supported.
If you configured a filter expression, only entries with this field set will be iterated by the journald reader of Filebeat. If the filter expressions apply to different fields, only entries with all fields set will be iterated. If they apply to the same fields, only entries where the field takes one of the specified values will be iterated.
match
: List of filter expressions to match fields.
or
: The filter expressions listed under or
are connected with a disjunction (or).
and
: The filter expressions listed under and
are connected with a conjunction (and).
Please note that these expressions are limited. You can build complex filtering, but full logical expressions are not supported.
The following include matches configuration reads all systemd
syslog entries:
include_matches.and: - match: - "journald.process.name=systemd" - "systemd.transport=syslog"
To reference fields, use one of the following:
-
The field name used by the systemd journal. For example,
CONTAINER_TAG=redis
. -
The translated field name
used by Filebeat. For example,
container.image.tag=redis
. Filebeat does not translate all fields from the journal. For custom fields, use the name specified in the systemd journal.
Translated field names
editYou can use the following translated names in filter expressions to reference journald fields:
Journald field name |
Translated name |
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The following translated fields for Docker are also available:
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Common options
editThe following configuration options are supported by all inputs.
enabled
editUse the enabled
option to enable and disable inputs. By default, enabled is
set to true.
tags
editA list of tags that Filebeat includes in the tags
field of each published
event. Tags make it easy to select specific events in Kibana or apply
conditional filtering in Logstash. These tags will be appended to the list of
tags specified in the general configuration.
Example:
filebeat.inputs: - type: journald . . . tags: ["json"]
fields
editOptional fields that you can specify to add additional information to the
output. For example, you might add fields that you can use for filtering log
data. Fields can be scalar values, arrays, dictionaries, or any nested
combination of these. By default, the fields that you specify here will be
grouped under a fields
sub-dictionary in the output document. To store the
custom fields as top-level fields, set the fields_under_root
option to true.
If a duplicate field is declared in the general configuration, then its value
will be overwritten by the value declared here.
filebeat.inputs: - type: journald . . . fields: app_id: query_engine_12
fields_under_root
editIf this option is set to true, the custom
fields are stored as top-level fields in
the output document instead of being grouped under a fields
sub-dictionary. If
the custom field names conflict with other field names added by Filebeat,
then the custom fields overwrite the other fields.
processors
editA list of processors to apply to the input data.
See Processors for information about specifying processors in your config.
pipeline
editThe ingest pipeline ID to set for the events generated by this input.
The pipeline ID can also be configured in the Elasticsearch output, but this option usually results in simpler configuration files. If the pipeline is configured both in the input and output, the option from the input is used.
keep_null
editIf this option is set to true, fields with null
values will be published in
the output document. By default, keep_null
is set to false
.
index
editIf present, this formatted string overrides the index for events from this input
(for elasticsearch outputs), or sets the raw_index
field of the event’s
metadata (for other outputs). This string can only refer to the agent name and
version and the event timestamp; for access to dynamic fields, use
output.elasticsearch.index
or a processor.
Example value: "%{[agent.name]}-myindex-%{+yyyy.MM.dd}"
might
expand to "filebeat-myindex-2019.11.01"
.
publisher_pipeline.disable_host
editBy default, all events contain host.name
. This option can be set to true
to
disable the addition of this field to all events. The default value is false
.