Step 2: Configure Metricbeat
editStep 2: Configure Metricbeat
editTo configure Metricbeat, you edit the configuration file. For rpm and deb,
you’ll find the configuration file at /etc/metricbeat/metricbeat.yml
. Under
Docker, it’s located at /usr/share/metricbeat/metricbeat.yml
. For mac and win,
look in the archive that you just extracted.
There’s also a full example configuration file called metricbeat.reference.yml
that shows all non-deprecated options.
See the Config File Format section of the Beats Platform Reference for more about the structure of the config file.
When you configure Metricbeat, you need to specify which modules to run. Metricbeat uses modules to collect metrics. Each module defines the basic logic for collecting data from a specific service, such as Redis or MySQL. A module consists of metricsets that fetch and structure the data. Read How Metricbeat works to learn more.
To configure Metricbeat:
-
Enable the modules that you want to run. If you accept the default configuration without enabling additional modules, Metricbeat collects system metrics only.
You can either enable the default module configurations defined in the
modules.d
directory (recommended), or add the module configs to themetricbeat.yml
file. Themodules.d
directory contains default configurations for all available Metricbeat modules.If you are using a Docker image, see Running Metricbeat on Docker.
The following examples enable the
apache
andmysql
configs in themodules.d
directory :deb and rpm:
metricbeat modules enable apache mysql
mac:
./metricbeat modules enable apache mysql
win:
PS > .\metricbeat.exe modules enable apache mysql
See the
modules
command to learn more about this command.To change the default module configurations, modify the
.yml
files in themodules.d
directory. See Standard config options for more about available settings.See Specify which modules to run if you want to add the module configs to the
metricbeat.yml
file rather than using themodules.d
directory. -
Configure the output. Metricbeat supports a variety of outputs, but typically you’ll either send events directly to Elasticsearch, or to Logstash for additional processing.
To send output directly to Elasticsearch (without using Logstash), set the location of the Elasticsearch installation:
-
If you’re running our hosted Elasticsearch Service on Elastic Cloud, specify your Cloud ID. For example:
cloud.id: "staging:dXMtZWFzdC0xLmF3cy5mb3VuZC5pbyRjZWM2ZjI2MWE3NGJmMjRjZTMzYmI4ODExYjg0Mjk0ZiRjNmMyY2E2ZDA0MjI0OWFmMGNjN2Q3YTllOTYyNTc0Mw=="
-
If you’re running Elasticsearch on your own hardware, set the host and port where Metricbeat can find the Elasticsearch installation. For example:
output.elasticsearch: hosts: ["myEShost:9200"]
To send output to Logstash, Configure the Logstash output instead. For all other outputs, see Configure the output.
-
-
If you plan to use the sample Kibana dashboards provided with Metricbeat, configure the Kibana endpoint. You can skip this step if Kibana is running on the same host as Elasticsearch.
-
If Elasticsearch and Kibana are secured, set credentials in the
metricbeat.yml
config file before you run the commands that set up and start Metricbeat.-
If you’re running our hosted Elasticsearch Service on Elastic Cloud, specify your cloud auth credentials. For example:
cloud.auth: "elastic:YOUR_PASSWORD"
-
If you’re running Elasticsearch on your own hardware, specify your Elasticsearch and Kibana credentials:
output.elasticsearch: hosts: ["myEShost:9200"] username: "filebeat_internal" password: "YOUR_PASSWORD" setup.kibana: host: "mykibanahost:5601" username: "my_kibana_user" password: "YOUR_PASSWORD"
This examples shows a hard-coded password, but you should store sensitive values in the secrets keystore.
The
username
andpassword
settings for Kibana are optional. If you don’t specify credentials for Kibana, Metricbeat uses theusername
andpassword
specified for the Elasticsearch output.If you are planning to set up the Kibana dashboards, the user must have the
kibana_user
built-in role or equivalent privileges.For more information, see Securing Metricbeat.
-
To test your configuration file, change to the directory where the
Metricbeat binary is installed, and run Metricbeat in the foreground with
the following options specified: ./metricbeat test config -e
. Make sure your
config files are in the path expected by Metricbeat (see Directory layout),
or use the -c
flag to specify the path to the config file.
Before starting Metricbeat, you should look at the configuration options in the configuration file. For more information about these options, see Configuring Metricbeat.